


the enemy unprepared

by alamorn



Series: The Art of War, by Lydia Martin [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, Not Canon Compliant, OFC - Freeform, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an old-fashioned revenge story. Lydia Martin saves the day, gets the girl, and does not go out in a blaze of glory. This is an old-fashioned revenge story. There's not really a place for happy endings. OR: Lydia goes to college and has to deal with a resurgence of Peter Hale creepiness along with all her classes and a gradual realization that when she says she loves Allison she totally means it in a lesbian way.</p>
<p>Written for the Teen Wolf Big Bang, round three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While there is no physical sexual assault in this story, there is a great deal of Peter Hale being himself. This means that Lydia frequently feels threatened in a way that is very similar to sexual assault. There is one threat of rape. This is mostly about dealing with the aftermath of season two in a way that pretty much ignores season three.
> 
> [ Teen Wolf Big Bang](http://teenwolf-bb.livejournal.com/)
> 
> [Art, by the lovely stc019](http://monkeysmakebeautifulbabies.tumblr.com/post/68913093556/those-are-the-artworks-for-the-amazing-fic-the)

Lydia was in the mood to make bad decisions. She wasn’t drunk. No way, she’d only had . . . three, maybe four of those lovely Smirnoff Ices, and she could totally hold her liquor better than that, and besides she felt warm and loose and calm, and the world was sharp and present and the heat of the bonfire just reminded her that she was donedonedone with high school forever and ever, amen, so. She totally wasn’t drunk. Maybe a little tipsy but that was it. She just felt like, you know, taking her shoes off and dancing in the dirt and maybe just for once not being super aware of everything that was going on around her and keeping track of weakness and strengths, and so maybe she just wanted to let her hair down, figuratively. But she wasn’t drunk.

Now, Stiles was drunk. His normal . . . himness was magnified drunk. His gestures got bigger, his sentences more rambly, his quasi-crush on Scott more obvious, his real crush on her doubly so. His pale skin was flushed in the light of the fire, and the leaping flames painted the curve of his cheek with shadows. And she wasn’t the only one looking. She smiled at Derek, just a small one.  
The werewolves couldn’t get drunk, so they were just . . . sniffing each other? Whatever. She turned away from Erica and Boyd’s laced fingers, and the sheer delight of Isaac at their feet, his back against Boyd’s legs, his own sprawled out towards the fire, his arm slung over Erica’s knee, his head turned into the soft skin of her thigh. Looking at them made her feel the voyeur, so she tried not to. But looking at Scott and Allison wasn’t much better. Their heads were tilted together, forehead to forehead, and Allison had that soft, happy smile she only really got with him – and. And Derek scowling into the fire.  


She turned to Stiles and his wide grin instead, and let his fragmentary sentences wash over her. It was almost nice, not being able to follow the thread of what he was saying, and not to have to. It wouldn’t bite her in the ass if she didn’t, and he wouldn’t hold it against her if she didn’t. And – no one had ever liked her like Stiles did, with that pure, puppyish, unfailing devotion. He knew how smart she was and how mean and how ambitious and he liked her the more for it.  


With Jackson she’d had to fake dumb, had to hide her skills and her ambitions, because his ego was so damn delicate. He’d loved it when she’d shown her teeth, raked her nails down his back, made people cry, but the second she was smarter than him, he went on the defensive. And that was true with most people. They didn’t think she could be smart and beautiful, that she could solve complex calculus in her head while applying her lipgloss, and if they did recognize it, they hated her for it. Allison didn’t, but Allison was different. Stiles didn’t. Stiles worshiped her for it.  


So she watched the shadow of his lashes on his pale cheeks in the flickering of the bonfire, and she felt a . . . not a hunger, but perhaps an emptiness, grow inside of her. So when he made a particularly dramatic gesture, and his beer sloshed over his hand, she smiled. Empty was not what she wanted to be feeling.  


“Be careful,” she said, taking the bottle from his hand. “We wouldn’t want to waste the alcohol so lovingly provided for us by our dear, dear Alpha, now would we?”  


She heard Derek snort faintly, but she wasn’t listening. She was looking at Stiles’ long, thin fingers in her hand, and then she was dipping her head and kissing and sucking the shitty beer from those long, thin, graceful fingers, the palm of his hand, his wrist.  


When she looked up at him through her lashes, his mouth was slack, his eyes dazed and heavy lidded. She smiled again, over the roaring in her ears, and he started to blink and stutter. So she kissed him. It was closed mouth, almost chaste, but when she pulled away his eyes were closed, his lips barely parted. He looked like he’d been part of something holy, or fucked dry and left wrecked in the aftermath. So she didn’t look at him. She glanced around the fire. Allison met her eyes, then looked away, and Derek – Derek looked cold, like something inside had shut down. Well. Erica stared straight at her, one eyebrow cocked, mouth curled with amusement. Boyd shook his head at her. Isaac – Isaac hadn’t even noticed, his eyes closed blissfully, Erica’s hand in his hair. And Scott looked worried, but Scott always looked worried about Stiles.  


“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to Stiles, catching his ear with her teeth as she pulled away. At his eager nod, she giggled. He was so ready to please, so disbelieving. She took his hand in her own, the bottle forgotten next to the log they’d been sitting on, and pulled him from the fire.  


He towered over her, as most people did. Normally she forgot how tall he was, but in the dark forest, tipsy enough that everything was more, he looked part of the shadows, some tall fey beast that only existed in the dark. His pale skin shone in the moonlight as they got further from the fire, and despite his normal clumsiness, he moved gracefully enough on the soft ground of the Beacon Hills Preserve. It took forever and no time at all to get back to the Hale house where Stiles’ jeep was parked.  


She stopped him outside the car with a hand pressed against his chest. He leaned against the door, one arm hooked in the open window, the other wrapped around her waist. “We’re not going to have sex,” she said.  


“I didn’t have a condom anyway,” he said, and slid the hand at her waist up her back to tangle in her hair and pull her in for a long kiss on her tip-toes. He was clumsy – too drunk to know where his body was, even before considering it in relation to hers – but not unskilled. Now who had Stiles been making out with? she wondered, until the soft, insistent press of his mouth brought her to realize it didn’t really matter. He didn’t try to force his tongue in her mouth, he didn’t yank on her hair, and his lips were warm and slick with beer, and she was enjoying herself. Thoroughly.  


But even though his hand was warm against her breast and there was a pool of heat low in her stomach that wasn’t quite arousal but could have easily settled into it, she couldn’t stop laughter from bubbling up through her lips.  


“Sorry,” she said, pulling away and resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. She nipped his neck and he hissed or sighed and tilted his head so she could reach better. “Let’s get in the car.”  


He opened the door for her and bowed her through, and she clambered awkwardly into the back seat, kicking her heels off and hearing them thump on the floor of the car. He scrambled in behind her, and she considered pulling him down on top of her. No, she decided, and remained seated upright, one hand braced on the headrest of the seat in front of her.  


Stiles moved in to kiss her again, and again it was sweet and slow. He dragged his teeth over her bottom lip and she snuck her tongue into his mouth and pulled a hand fluttering nervously in the air to her hip.  


This time he was the one who started to laugh. She tried to scowl at him, but her mouth betrayed her and she began to laugh with him. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” she said, and the warmth pooled in her belly spread through the rest of her body.  


“I don’t think so,” he said. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t think you’re pretty –”  


She glanced at the tightness of his pants and he rolled his head to the side in a half-hearted shrug.  


“I think you’re really pretty,” Stiles continued, “but, uh-“  


“It’s okay,” Lydia said, still fighting down the laughter. “It really, really is. It’s better even – I mean, not that I don’t think you’re pretty – well, not pretty – well, yeah, pretty – but. I like you too much to have meaningless sex? I guess that’s what that feeling is, I’ve never really turned down sex with a pretty boy before, and I – well, I get it.”  


Stiles smiled at her, open and honest, and she reached out and tousled his hair, just because it needed doing.  


And then there was a rap on the window. Lydia just about jumped out of her skin and had to dodge Stiles’ flailing arms as he did the same. When they collected themselves, clinging to each other in a not particularly dignified way, Lydia looked out the window. Boyd grinned in at her.  


Stiles swore under his breath and opened the door. “Is something wrong? Because something must be wrong if you’re here, and not with the rest of leather central.”  


“No one’s wearing leather tonight,” Boyd said, as he slipped into the driver’s seat. “Keys.”  


Stiles handed them over, seemingly without thinking. “Wait – what, why do you need my keys, where are we going, are you kidnapping us? I warn you, I am a fragile soul and will not stand up under questioning.”  


Boyd snorted and started the car. Stiles had been beaten trying to save him and Erica, Lydia remembered. She’d heard about it, much abbreviated, when they finally decided to let her in on everything that had happened while Jackson went around killing people. “I’m your designated driver,” Boyd said, doing a smooth K turn. “Derek thought someone should make sure you two got home safe.”  


“I’m not going home,” Lydia said. “My mom will still be up.”  


She could see Boyd close his eyes for what felt like a long moment, but was really only a second or two. The trees looked thin and ominous in the yellow glow of the headlights, but she had a flare gun in her purse, had carried one ever since a screaming shadow burst out from the side of the road as she was driving Allison home one night.  


“Where do you want to go, then?” Boyd asked. She thought for a long time. She liked Boyd’s voice and wanted him to talk more.  


“Could we go to a diner?” she asked.  


“Yeah!” said Stiles. “God, I’m starving – I’ll treat you, Boyd, as long as you promise to eat like a human. I’m not made of money.”  


“You’ve got more than me,” Boyd said, and Stiles whimpered.  


“I’m going to regret this,” he said. “You’re taking advantage of my kindhearted drunkenness, and general inability to manage money. You’re a – a – an advantage taker!”  


Lydia shoved his shoulder. “I’ll treat,” she said. “It’s a better cause than a dress I’ll never wear, and I want you to truly appreciate what that means.”  


“I bought you a widescreen TV for your birthday once,” Stiles groused, a happy crease to his eyes.  


Boyd brought the car smoothly onto the real road and it stopped bump bump bumping. Lydia’s stomach settled just as she realized it had been upset.  


“Yeah,” she said. “Back when I barely knew you and you were all lying to me. And you returned it, so don’t even play that card. It was a little creepy, babe.”  


“It wasn’t creepy! It was sweet and thoughtful!”  


Boyd snickered. “It was a little creepy, dude.”  


“We’re talking about the party where we all got drugged and hallucinated and you got mind controlled into raising Peter, and I was the creepy one?”  


Lydia stilled, the warmth of liquor seeming to seep out through the tips of her toes and the stick of her skin on sweaty vinyl. “No,” she said, her tongue thick and clumsy. She ran it over her teeth. They felt dirty all of a sudden. She felt dirty. “No, he’s always the creepy one. I’m sorry I called you creepy, Stiles. I take it back. Can we change the subject?”  


She kept her eyes firmly fixed out the window, but she could feel their eyes on her. The need to take a shower got stronger. Mind control. Right. Of course.  


Boyd coughed the least authentic cough she’d ever heard. “This work for you guys? It’s the closest 24 hour place I know of.”  


The neon sign had gone out in a few places, turning Moe’s Restaurant and Diner into o estu ant n Dine. It looked like the sort of place stoned college students would congregate, if Beacon Hills had a college. Lydia pulled her shoes back on and clambered into the front before she popped the door open and hopped out, brushing off her skirt and taking the opportunity to pinch the skin of her thigh viciously. “Looks good,” she said, and headed in, letting the boys scramble after. Well, Stiles scrambled. Boyd had more dignity than that.  


She slid into a red vinyl booth, and laughed. “Straight out of the fifties,” she murmured as she glanced around. The determined retro styling was made a bit more authentic by the lack of upkeep. Instead of looking like it had been pulled from the pages of a magazine, Moe’s had the sense of apathetic world-weariness that Lydia had always thought must have been pervasive in the fifties. Well, if she lived in the fifties, she’d be apathetic and world weary. Maybe she was projecting.  


Stiles landed next to her, hard enough that the bench seat bounced. His thigh bumped hers, but pulled away as he settled more firmly in. Boyd had a more graceful entrance, and had managed to snag menus.  


Lydia took one and glanced through it. Her arteries started to clog just reading about the dishes they served. Stiles waved his off.  


“I know what I’m getting,” he said. “Curly fries and onion rings and a veggie burger.”  


“A veggie burger?” Boyd said, voice dripping with either disdain or confusion. It was hard to tell, and Lydia thought he might not know himself.  


“I’ve been trying to get my dad to eat healthy since I was fourteen. At some point I actually started liking vegetables.” Stiles shrugged, almost defensively. “Fries and onions rings are made out of vegetables, so it’s not like I’m being that hypocritical.”  


Boyd snorted and waved over the waitress. She didn’t bother to greet them, just tapped her pen against her notepad. There was a tiredness in her eyes that Lydia recognized too well, so she didn’t look at those eyes, or the bruises peaking up over the collar of her dress.  


Stiles ordered, exactly what he’d told them he would. Boyd smiled at her and got a Coke and a burger, not veggie. Lydia was too wired to eat, her stomach a tight knot in her stomach, so she just got ginger ale.  


“You’re both going to drink a lot of water,” Boyd said, as the waitress walked away. “I’m not going to be responsible for your hangovers.”  


“I’m really not that drunk,” Lydia said as the room swayed around her.  


“Uh-huh. Water. Lots of it.”  


“You wolves are so bossy,” Lydia complained, kicking her shoes off under the table and propping her sore feet up against Boyd’s bench. He glanced at her toes and she wiggled them in a facsimile of a wave. He looked back up. “We’re not bossy. Well. Derek’s bossy. But that’s because he’s alpha.”  


“Nuh-uh,” she said, and leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table and enjoying the stretch in her hamstrings. “You’re all bossy. Lydia, translate this! Lydia, contact spirits! Lydia, you can’t come, you’re just a banshee! Lydia, even though we only talk when I need a favor, I need another favor! Lydia, Lydia, Lydia, we can’t solve our own problems! You have to do it for us! But we’ll still keep secrets, to ‘protect’ you!”  


Stiles nodded along. “I can’t tell you the amount of times Derek’s shoved me up against a wall just to make his orders more order-y! It’s like, dude, of course I’ll help you, I’ve been helping you.”  


Boyd chuckled. “I think that’s a little different.”  


“Oh, sweetie, you mean you haven’t noticed?” Lydia felt bad all of a sudden. Her tight stomach got tighter. “Derek, uh, he’s super tense around you for a reason. And, I mean, he’s a huge asshole, but. Wow. Boyd? I’m gonna let you handle this.”  


She shoved at Stiles until he got out of the seat, and she scooted out and followed the sign to the bathroom. Standing at the sink, she splashed cold water on her face and looked at her reflection as she patted dry. Her eyes were wide, her pupils blown, the circles under her eyes almost purple and showing completely through her concealer. Her lips were chapped, her hair tangled, her shirt smudged with dirt. And she was barefoot in a public bathroom.  


Well. She’d had worse low points.  


Lydia glared at her reflection until it stopped swaying gently back and forth. Then she finger combed her hair and braided her hair, thanking her grandmother for the lesson on always carrying extra supplies as she pulled a hair tie from around the strap of her bra. Lipgloss came from a pocket she’d had sewn into the skirt, and it wasn’t so hard to scrub the dirt from her shirt.  


She took a deep breath and headed back out. Stiles had stuffed almost the entire serving of curly fries into his face at the same time, and Boyd had leaned back, the expression of bemusement and slight concern almost outweighed by amusement.  


Lydia sat next to Stiles again, this time on the outside. He swallowed hard, and then spoke through the remaining curly fries. “F’ckn whewoves.”  


“Yeah,” she said. “Same. They’re so arrogant. Just because they could rip us in half, they think they’re better than us.”  


Boyd groaned and she flashed her best smile at him, the one that showed almost all of her teeth.  


Stiles managed to empty his mouth. “And Deaton! All of this cryptic bullshit! I don’t think he’s aged in fifteen years. Or more! I saw a picture of him the other day, and other than the clothes, which were hideously eighties, he looked exactly the same.”  


“God! Like, I love being human! Or. I mean, a banshee, I guess, but sometimes it’s so hard. All of these super strong assholes thinking that they can just boss us around.”  


“Humans beat me up once,” Boyd said, dryly.  


Lydia waved a hand at him. “Yeah, but that was Grampa Argent, he hardly counts as human. He’s like — like a new species. Fuckfacius maximus, and God, I’m so sorry to scientific naming conventions, I went for it as a joke, but God, I could have done better. Like, that doesn’t even follow the genus species type, like, species doesn’t have to end with -us. I understand Latin! Wow. I — I’m going to blame the demon drink. It has done this to me.”  


Boyd dissolved into silent chuckles, head on the table, shoulders shaking. When he recovered, he said, “Okay, I’m getting you guys home. This is hilarious and all, but it’s two in the morning and I moved out of my parents’ house so I wouldn’t have to baby sit. Let’s get going, children.”  


Lydia stuck her tongue out, but went willingly enough, her hand finding Stiles’ as they walked back to the car. “I’m glad we’re friends,” she said.  


“Me too,” he said, and bumped her shoulder with his own.  


“You too, Boyd!” she shouted. “I’m glad we’re friends too!”  


“Get in the car,” he said, but his voice was warm.  


Boyd stopped the car half a block from her house, and Lydia snuck in as the grandfather clock in the hall chimed three. She threw herself into bed after kicking her shoes off, satisfied, little thrills of laughter still running through her body every few minutes.  


Ten minutes later, as she was wriggling out of her dress, stopping regularly to keep the room from spinning, her phone beeped. She glanced at the screen, not meaning to check the message. But it was Allison, so she had to answer.  


“Are you ok?” it read. “I can come get you if you need me to.”  


Lydia smiled at the concerned and, she knew, painfully typed out message. Allison lost her ability to spell before she lost her ability to juggle knives and it embarrassed her so much that she would take half an hour on a message, reading and re-reading it for typos.  


“i’m fine.” she sent back. “stiles was perfect gentleman, may need to add him to list of people i would not kill if stuck in a room with.”  


She finished getting ready for bed while she waited for a response. Lydia felt her teeth with her tongue, grimaced and decided to take a breath mint instead of running water and waking up her mom.  


Her phone beeped again. It was a winky face, so she sent back a heart and fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.

She woke up with her mouth drier than it had ever been and her arm numb from having it twisted under her. She was still holding her phone, so she grimaced, shook out her arm, plugged her phone into the charger, brushed her teeth, and descended.  


Her mother looked at her with an eyebrow almost to her hairline. “Late night?” she said, WASP-y disdain thick in her voice.  


Lydia fluttered her lashes and grabbed orange juice from the fridge. “You know me, mother, always partying it up. Eggs?”  


“I’ve already eaten.”  


Lydia shrugged and poured her orange juice before getting out a frying pan and slapping some butter on it. By some miracle – by which she meant Boyd, as he’d made her drink his entire water bottle before dropping her off – she didn’t have a hangover. Her head was a little fuzzy, but it always was in the mornings, so she didn’t pay it much mind.  


Well, she didn't pay it much mind until her mother spoke again.  


"I want you to stop seeing those . . . people." The clipped way she said 'people' was related entirely to the way she pretended not to see homeless people and made sure never to buy anything she thought other people could afford, and not at all to the way more than half of Lydia's social group could sprout claws and sideburns at the drop of a hat.  


Lydia sipped her orange juice slowly to give herself time to think. She was moving out in three months and was planning on getting her own apartment as soon as possible, so really she didn't have to play by her parents' rules anymore. "No," she said, with the quirk of her lips she'd practiced in a mirror until it came naturally.  


"Then you're grounded."  


Lydia shrugged and cracked two eggs into the pan. Most of her friends didn't really let things like the second story of a house or laws stop them. She was hardly going to have trouble seeing them. And she had a job lined up, so it wasn't like she was going to go stir crazy.  


Her mother's eyes narrowed and she was so beautiful, so perfectly put together just for breakfast, that she looked like something made from ice. Lydia wanted to smash that ice, rub the make-up from her face, pull her hair into disarray. Instead, she smiled coldly back.  


"You're not to have anyone over without permission, and certainly none of those reprobates you've been seen with lately. If you want to go anywhere, you'll tell me where, when and with whom, and if we find out that any of those were lies, you'll never leave the house again. I want you to give me your keys sometime today. You don't get the car or any TV.”  


Lydia flipped her eggs, accidentally ripping the yolk of one, and watched the yellow of it thicken. "Whatever you say, mother dearest. I'm sure you know best."  


She could almost hear the teeth grinding behind her, and she couldn't quite suppress the smirk that curled at the corner of her mouth.  


"Is that all?" she asked, turning back to her mother. "I wouldn't want to upset you any further, after all. I've hardly been thinking about how my actions reflect on the family at all, and I'm sure that's been very hard on you both. I want to apologize. I am sincerely sorry that you are incapable of recognizing that my friends are the best possible people for me to associate with, and that I trust every single one of them with my life." Not once did she drop her best sugary sweet tone.  


Her mother didn't huff. It would have been beneath her dignity. But she did close her eyes slowly and smiled the tight smile of the completely enraged. "Go to your room," she said.  


"But mother dearest, I'm making breakfast! I couldn't possibly leave in the middle of this." As she spoke, she slid the eggs onto a plate and started spicing them. "If I were to eat in my room we might get ants!"  


It shouldn't have felt as good as it did to see the snarl trapped in her mother's throat, but, well, she was out of high school now. It was time for a new image. Despite her new resolution, Lydia ate quickly at the sink and retreated back to her room without pushing her luck any further. She'd seen her mother too gleeful after firing people too many times to ignore the frosty silence completely.  


When she reached her room she immediately went for her phone.  


"Grounded" she sent Allison. "Want to break me out?"  


A few minutes later her phone beeped. "I think you're missing the point of grounding. Be there in twenty."  


Lydia could hardly back flip off the roof like Allison did, but she was pretty good at climbing down the trellis. She looked through her closet for proper break-out clothing. She didn’t want to climb the trellis in a skirt, but she hardly owned anything else. Finally, she found shorts she hadn’t worn in at least a year. They still fit, but they were tight in the hips and loose in the thigh. It would have to do.  


Ten minutes. She crept out onto the landing, and heard her mother shouting at the phone. A smile curved Lydia’s lips as her mother swore and headed for the door. The car roared out of the driveway.  


Five minutes. She checked her hair in the mirror. She hadn’t done anything to it, but she’d slept with a braid in, so it fell in loose waves. It would have to do. She scowled at herself. Why was she getting nervous over meeting Allison? Allison had pulled her naked and shivering from a stream after an encounter with water nymphs. It was a bit hard to impress someone with looks after something like that. And besides, Allison had stopped dressing nicely not too long after her mother died. Not that she looked bad, she just obviously put less importance on appearance than before.  


Her phone buzzed and she jumped.  


“Parked around the corner.” it read. Lydia thought about climbing down the trellis, but her mother had gone. She shoved her window open anyway, just in case she had to come back that way.  


Time seemed to contract and lengthen so that it took forever and no time at all before she was sliding into the passenger seat and smiling at Allison, actually smiling, like she didn’t do for anyone else.  


“Where do you want to go?” Allison asked, pulling into the street and doing a neat turn.  


“Doesn’t matter,” Lydia said. “I just want to breathe, get away from my mom. It’s a bit stifling, you know?”  


Allison glanced over at her and grinned wryly. “My father has tied me to chairs and broke my arm once. I know about overbearing.”  


“That’s not overbearing. That’s creepy and weird.”  


“Well, I mean, I kicked him in the back of the knee and he couldn’t walk right for a few weeks, so it’s not like I was just letting it happen.”  


Lydia opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’m not going to start. I’m just going to mourn that such an attractive older man, who can bake very nice cakes, is so incredibly insane.”  


Allison reached over and punched her in the shoulder without taking her eyes off the road. “Don’t hit on my dad. Don’t talk about my dad’s looks. Don’t — God, I don’t — You’re too young to be my stepmother, so don’t get on that path, okay?”  


Laughter bubbled up in her chest. “Allison, I love you. I’m not going to let your silver fox of a father get between us in that way.”  


Allison ducked her head, and Lydia thought she saw a faint blush. “Good to know,” she said. “I’ll give him the bad news when I get home.”  


“Oh, good. I hate having to break it to people myself.”  


“No, you don’t.”  


Lydia shrugged, pleased. “No, I don’t.”  


Allison glanced at her again. “Hey, uh, if living with your mom is so tough why don’t you move in with your dad? He’d be happy to have you. Wouldn’t he?”  


Lydia flexed her hands automatically. “My father would take it as an opportunity to gloat to my mother. He would passive-aggressively badger me the entire time about my clothes, make-up and friends. He would express disbelieve at me going to Caltech, because it’s impossible to do math in heels. As much as I fight with my mom, she at least doesn’t think I’m some sort of-” Her voice had been rising in pitch as she spoke, so she took a second to breathe. “He thinks I’m one break-up away from a psychotic break, and has been thinking that since I was fourteen.”  


Allison didn’t respond for a moment and Lydia looked out the window. It was a beautiful day, sunny and hot. Perfect California weather.  


“I’m sorry,” Allison said. “I . . . didn’t realize it was so bad.”  


“Yeah, well. I chose to live with my mom for a reason, and I’m choosing not to move back in with her for another.”  


“Where are you going to stay? When you’re not in school, I mean.”  


“I was thinking of getting an apartment. If I get too desperate for money, I could always move in with Derek. He has enough space.”  


Allison laughed. “You’d be at each other’s throats before the end of the first day.”  


“Yeah, but he wouldn’t kick me out, just glare poutily and lurk meaningfully. And you know how good I am at ignoring meaningful looks.”  


Allison looked at her meaningfully, and Lydia laughed so hard she snorted. Allison was the only person who knew she snorted. Allison quirked a smile at her, dimpling slightly, and pulled to a stop. “All right, we’re here, out of the car.”  


Lydia did as she was told with a mock salute. When she looked around, she groaned. “Do you know how many times I’ve almost died here?” she asked.  


“Yup,” Allison said cheerfully, pulling her shirt off to reveal a swim suit as she walked towards the river. “I was there.”  


“Allison, you do realize that I am not psychic, and thus not wearing a bathing suit?”  


“Nothing I haven’t seen before, Martin. Come on, the water’s great.” Allison splashed encouragingly.  


Lydia tried to think about it for a moment, but she was already walking towards the water. So many supernatural occurrences had ended or begun with her getting naked that it hardly seemed worth the effort to be embarrassed anymore. And it was Allison, Allison, who’d held her hair back as she vomited black slime, Allison, who’d saved her life, Allison, who went shopping and laughed at boys with her. What was a little nudity compared to all that? So she shrugged and stripped and slipped into the water. It was as nice as she’d said, and Lydia dunked herself all the way in. When she surfaced, Allison was smiling.  


“Do you remember the time Jackson tried to seduce you?” Lydia found herself asking.  


Allison laughed, startled. “Yeah! It was so uncomfortable. I mean, no offense to him, but other than looks he doesn’t have much going for him, and, well, I was pretty desperately in love with Scott.”  


Was, Lydia latched on to. Why was? They seemed happy enough together. She shook her head and pushed the wet tendrils of hair out of her face. “He’s really good with his fingers,” she said, “once you get him to stop pushing on your shoulder.”  


“Scott never did anything like that,” Allison said, those big brown eyes concerned. “Do you want me to kill him?”  


Did, Lydia focused on. Were they breaking up again? Did he start?  


“No, no,” Lydia said. “It was a long time ago. I've moved on to better things.”  


“You loved him,” Allison said.  


“I shouldn't have.” Lydia licked her lips. “We were similar, and I love myself, and I loved him for being a mirror. Or. No, I did love him. I shouldn't pretend I didn't.” She swished a hand through the water, feeling very naked all of a sudden. “Besides, Ellie was so good in bed that I don't even miss him anymore.”  


“Ellie?” Allison said. “Who-?”  


Suddenly the water was very cold. “My ex. We dated for a couple months last year.”  


Allison pushed her wet hair out of her face. “God, I didn't even notice. I'm so sorry.”  


Lydia breathed out. “You were busy, and we weren't that serious.”  


“Yeah, but I didn't even realize you were into girls. I feel like a bad friend.”  


Lydia laughed. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not a big deal or anything. I just don’t even think to mention it anymore, and I have been primarily hooking up with guys.” Lydia twisted her hair and squeezed some water out. “People make assumptions.”  


“Well, I’m sorry about it anyway. Do you… need a wingman or something?” She looked so very awkward, standing there in her blue bikini, eyebrows squinched, guilt and worry fighting for dominance on her face. Lydia couldn’t help but to laugh.  


“Oh, honey, I love you, but no.”  


Allison sighed, and her shoulders came down. “I’m going to miss you when we go to school.”  


“Don’t worry,” Lydia said over the knot in her gut. “We’ll Skype all the time, and visit each other. Caltech and Stanford aren’t that far apart, we’ll see each other regularly.”  


“Six hours isn’t what I’d call close,” Allison said, her voice dry.  


“Depends on how much effort you’re willing to put in.” Lydia splashed Allison. “Come on. We’ve got three months. Don’t worry about it too much.”  
Allison grinned, and God she was gorgeous. “You’re right. Let’s enjoy our time while it lasts.”


	2. Chapter 2

And they did. It wasn't hard to sneak past her mother, and anyway, she could always claim to be going to the library or work or the mall. Her mother was worse at enforcing groundings than Lydia was at following them.  


The summer was hot and sunny and boring in the best way. Until Derek asked Stiles out, there were no emergencies, and the one after that disastrous first date was easy enough to deal with. Stiles slept at Scott's for a week, and he and Derek wouldn't meet each other's eyes for three, and then everyone managed to move on, and Derek was a lot less handsy and Stiles was a lot less flirty, and it was all fine.  


Well, except for when Derek's baby sister showed up. Lydia spent far too much time staring into angry eyes with her back against a wall to be happy about it. Eventually, she enlisted Allison and Derek for an intervention for angry wall-shoving and over the top threats.  


There was no word of Peter, and the nightmares decreased from five a week, to three, to one. It was amazing. And then the summer was over.  


It made it harder to leave Beacon Hills, after spending almost all her time with Allison. She was sure Caltech would be great, but, well. Lydia looked at the campus, filled with students, and felt a sort of excitement and fear. She’d miss Allison, of course. She’d miss them all. But she was meant for great things, and Caltech was the way to get to them. And the sun was warm here, and she had no history here, no one who remembered her as the freak who ran naked in the woods, no one to breathe down her neck and remind her of what she’d done.  


And that was worth it all.

***

The first night in her new dorm room — Lloyd House, rooming with a fellow math major — Lydia woke up screaming. The entire rest of the hall woke up too, and the RA ran in wearing only a ratty old shirt and her underwear and wielding a phone like a weapon.  


Her roommate, a brunette with freckles and a gap between her two front teeth, stared at her, hands clapped over her ears. Michelle. Her name was Michelle. Lydia'd dated a girl named Michelle, once. It was weird, to live with another one. The rest of the hall crowded into the doorway behind the RA, who glanced around, checking for murderers and sexual predators, then started shooing the whispering freshman away. Lydia’s phone buzzed and buzzed as texts rolled in, and as she tried to sink into her bed a lean Indian girl caught her eye through a pair of impressively blue glasses. The frames were almost violently teal, and Lydia focused on them, until they slid up into the girl’s hair without being touched. Then she focused on the girl. She nodded, and Lydia nodded back, the blush fading from her cheeks.  


The RA fluttered next to her bed, asking question after question, and Lydia didn’t know how to answer a single one of them, so she lied and mumbled and managed to stammer her way through the interrogation. Finally, she managed to convince the older girl to leave, that everything was fine, it’s just being in a new place, I’m so sorry, I’m so embarrassed, it won’t happen again.  


Before she slammed her face into her pillow she sent off a mass text, without checking her messages or texts, to all her wolfie friends. “I’m fine” it said.  


Her roommate — Michelle, that was her name — smiled cautiously. “Am I gonna need to invest in earplugs?”  


“God, I hope not,” Lydia said, trying to laugh it off. “It’s not a regular thing, I promise.”  


It was only a small lie, anyway, and the body wasn’t found until the next day.  


It might as well of had a note stapled to it.  


Love, Peter

***

The dead boy was a werewolf. Lydia knew, because she found him, and the wounds that ripped open his throat were rawer than the ones half-healed in his side. Lydia found him, because his death had pulled at her through the night, and she’d followed it, like a leash connected to the base of her skull. She looked at him as she called 911, hands only shaking a little. There was a lot of blood, and his guts were half out, and there were grooves in the pavement where his claws had dug in before he died and they retracted to plain old nails. The wounds were all placed exactly where hers had been, when Peter savaged her, but deeper. Much deeper.  


She cried on the phone with the operator, but held her mind apart, looking for the meaning and the implications and her options. He was nearby, that much was obvious. He was nearby, and he hadn’t forgotten her, and he didn’t want her to forget him.  


He’d disappeared around Christmas last year, after a fight with a rival pack looking to expand their territory. Everyone’d been scattered, injured and confused, and no one noticed he was gone for almost a week. Lydia spent the rest of the month sleeping only with Allison or one of the wolves, and even then only poorly. And now, here he was.  


She pressed her lips together, hard, as she hung up and slid her phone back into her purse. The woman had told her to stay put, that the emergency services would be there in a few minutes. There was nowhere to sit, and the walls were rough and would snag at her blouse, so she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Then she called her teacher’s office to let him know she’d be missing her first class, and it was extenuating circumstances, can she come in later to make it up, will a note from the police suffice?  


Then she settled in to wait, fist shoved into her stomach to keep it from protesting. Flies buzzed around her head and crawled out of the boy’s mouth, and his blood was red-brown and flaked off his body every time an insect landed on him or a breeze blew. She turned around and stared at the wall, but with every little noise so common to college campuses — footsteps, laughter, shouting, the rustling of small animals — she flinched and expected to feel his hands around her throat, his voice hissing in her ear. “Isn’t this easier, Lydia? Why are you fighting it? You know you’re mine. You’ll always be mine. I made you.”  


So the sirens really came as quite a relief. Two police cars, one ambulance. She got a shock blanket, and a cup of tea, and a recommendation for a psychologist who could help her work through the trauma of finding a body, especially one in such a state. The last was from a woman with gray hair and soft eyes who turned to Lydia after loading the dead boy into the ambulance.  


Instead of calling the psychologist, Lydia walked away and called Stiles.  


He answered on the third ring, but he sounded distracted. “Hey, what?”  


“It’s happening again,” she said, pacing in tight circles. “People are dying. And, uh, it’s Peter.”  


“Shit,” he said, suddenly all attention. “Shit, you sure?”  


“Yes, I’m sure. He was in my head for half a year, you think I don’t know his work?”  


“No, no, course not, sorry, just didn’t want it to be him. Wow. This makes everything very messy, huh?” he sighed. “We couldn’t even manage a week away without emergencies.”  


“We?” Lydia said. “What’s yours?”  


“I was having solidarity, you ingrate,” he said, delighted. “But, if you must know, I have managed to discover that my school is just crawling with fey. They all seem friendly enough, but it's weird and they all keep hissing things in Polish at me. But we can talk about that when the murderous werewolf is no longer at large.”  


“Hey, you’re Lydia, right?”  


Lydia looked up, startled and annoyed. The Indian girl from last night stood a few feet from her, weight balanced on one leg, those violently teal glasses on the end of her nose. Her hair swung in a smooth black ponytail and her eyes were bright and intent. “Yeah, but I’m a little busy right now, so can we talk later, I’ll find you.”  


Stiles kept talking. “Who’s there? What’s happening? Is it Peter, do you need help, Allison can be there in no time, you know her.”  


“No, it’s fine, don’t call Allison, just give me a second,” she said, then looked up. “Is it urgent?”  


The girl shrugged. “Well, I know what you are and I want to talk to you, so you decide.”  


Lydia swore under her breath. “Stiles, I’ll call you back. Can you let everyone know about what happened? But keep them from panicking and doing anything stupid.”  


Stiles snorted, but hung up, and Lydia slid her phone back into her bag.  


“All right,” she said. “I’m game. What am I?”  


The girl smiled, and her teeth were toothpaste-commercial white. “Banshee. See, whoever your mentor was, they sucked. You should get a new one. They should have taught you to hide it by now.”  


A hundred lies and misdirections sprang to mind, but eventually Lydia shrugged. “Didn’t have one. Didn’t even know what I was until junior year of high school.”  


“Oh,” the girl said. “Oh, shit, that’s … that’s really bad. Uh, you should probably come with me. My name’s Angie, by the way, I’m not trying to kidnap you or anything.”  


“Thank the Lord,” Lydia said dryly. “I’d hate to get the wrong impression. You’re a witch?”  


“Yeah, if that’s the word you want to use. There’s about a million names for everything, it gets pretty confusing.”  


“Of course it does. It seems like I’m not going to be getting to class today, so why not?” Lydia said, throwing up her hands. It was an over the top gesture, but she was feeling frazzled so she excused herself.  


Angie ushered her in front and kept up a brisk pace. “All right, so I don’t know what knowledge you have but I’m going to start with the, ha, race relations, as it were…”

***

Lydia went to bed with her mind spinning, crystallized equations from her quantum mechanics reading mixing with the names of a hundred different supernatural creatures and the voice of Angie’s grandmother, telling her how to control her sleep. Her head rested uncomfortably on her pillow, no matter how she tried to adjust, the pendant Angie had given her digging into her shoulder, clavicle, ear.  


Her hands twitched to take it off, but it would keep her from screaming, or that was the promise anyway. A last ditch measure, the old woman had called it over Skype. Weak, and likely to give her nightmares, but it would suppress her voice and until she’d learned to control it, bad dreams were worth it to diminish the risk of discovery.  


She managed to drift into uneasy sleep sometime after two. In her dream she stood in the old Hale house over the hole in the floor Peter’d crawled his way out of. The house creaked and settled around her, and the floor was cold and slimy under her bare feet. Lydia turned, chest tight, but saw nothing. So she walked to the door, stepping through puddles of blood and dried streaks of it, ash and twisted black floorboards. She couldn’t breathe, but she kept walking. If she could get out the door she would be safe.  


The blood pulled at her feet like a living creature, viscous and sticky, protesting both entrance and exit. She didn’t look down or back. Lydia prided herself on her knowledge of the classics, and she was no Orpheus to let impatience ruin her victory.  


The lintel of the doorway got further and further away, the house stretching and groaning under her feet. A scream started deep in her chest, but caught on the way up, coming out as a low moan. Lydia walked faster, and the blood pulled harder, the floor cracked under her feet, and she struggled to keep her balance.  


Her fists were so tight her knuckles creaked, but she put one foot in front of the other, and she was there, just one more step, just one more —  


The house collapsed around her, the floor caved in, and she was in the cellar, trapped under rubble, staring up at the bright sunlight of the day. His hands were cold on the back of her neck, and he turned her head with something almost like gentleness.  


“Hello, pet,” he said, and smiled.  


She didn’t wake up screaming. She didn’t wake up at all. She thrashed to get away from him, hair tangling into the dirt and wood around her.  


“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, but his teeth were out and his nails were sharp against the skin of her throat. “I just want you to be mine.”  


“No,” she said. “No, no, please, no.”  


“Shh,” he said, holding one finger to his lips. “Hush. It will only hurt if you make me angry.”  


Nothing clever came to mind. No insults, no pretty pleas. Nothing. “No,” she whimpered.  


And then — and then she knew what she had to do to make it stop. Just like last time, the knowledge was just — there. All she had to do was find him. Find him, and he’d leave her alone. And it would be so easy, so, so easy. She knew where he was. She always knew where he was. It was like a fire alarm in the back of her head, and maybe she managed to ignore it sometimes, but she knew. She just had to follow it.  


“You are such a smart girl,” he said, pressing his face to her neck and breathing in. “So clever, and so practical. I’ll be waiting, Lydia.”  


And she woke up. Her sheets were gritty with dirt and the air smelled coppery, and she lay in bed and shivered until five. When she swung her legs out of bed, the first brush of feet on floor was a sharp pain, like pressing on a bruise. She closed her eyes and stood, and didn’t quite gasp.  


Her roommate murmured across the small space between their beds, and Lydia shook her head and padded slowly out, not even pausing for shoes. After clicking the door shut gently behind her, she headed for the bathroom.  


It was the light, she told herself, as she looked in the mirror, that made her look so awful. It was the light that painted bruises under her eyes, and turned her skin to paper. And then she turned her head and there were bruises across the back of her neck.  


And all she had to do — it would be so easy, and there’d be no more bruises, no more nightmares — was find him. Lydia slid her tongue over her teeth, focused on the banality of plaque and a sticky mouth. No. No, just because she’d given in before didn’t mean she needed to now. She knew what was happening now. She didn’t think she was going crazy now. Okay. She could do this. She nodded at herself in the mirror. Okay.


	3. Chapter 3

Lydia was ready for the day long before the day was ready for her. The dining hall didn’t open for another hour, but she was dressed and absolutely incapable of going back to sleep. So she headed out and perched on the edge of a bench and tried to do the breathing exercises her thorough research into panic attacks had assured her would help. And, well, they did. Somewhat. As she breathed in through her nose to a count of five and out through her mouth for a count of six, the sun rose, turning the sky a delicate orangey pink.

Allison ran in the morning, every morning. That hadn’t changed, as far as Lydia knew, so she pulled out her phone and stared at it for a moment, going over what she needed to say and how to say it.

Allison answered on the third ring, out of breath, and Lydia could just see her, sweat rolling down one temple, flushed and glowing in the way she always was when she’d had a good workout, and at the sound of that breathless voice, she lost the carefully planned words and let her own breath shudder out.

“Hey,” she said, and her voice hardly shook, and anyway it was Allison, and she’d stopped being self-conscious in front of Allison at some point. She didn’t know quite when it had happened, but it had solidified at “After everything that’s happened, I believe you.”

“Lydia?” Allison said, after Lydia paused for too long. “Are you okay?”

Lydia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and dragged a lip between her teeth to focus. “Yeah. Well. I needed to ask you for a favor. Have you talked to Stiles?”

“Not in the past couple days,” Allison said. “I’ve been busy. I think I missed a call from him yesterday. Is something wrong?”

Lydia breathed in five, out six. “Yeah. Peter’s here.”

The was a brief pause. In five, out six. “I think my dad has some contacts near you. I’ll text you their numbers. I can be there in … six hours.”

“No,” Lydia said automatically. “No, don’t come down. I can handle this. I will take the numbers, though.”

“Oh.” Allison sounded — hurt? Confused? It didn’t matter. “Well, do you want anyone to come down and help you out?”

Did she? Well, she hardly wanted to deal with it alone again, but… But no one understood, not really, what it was that twisted the air between her and Peter. A headache started to throb behind her left eye, and the scars on her knuckles from the mirror she’d broken pulled tight.

“Whoever’s closest,” she said eventually. “I just want someone to make sure he’s not on campus. After that, some wolfsbane should be good enough.”

Allison was quiet again. It hadn’t been this hard to talk to her since they’d all been lying about the werewolf thing. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get you the numbers in the next hour or so. And — You know I’ll always come help, right?”

“I know. Just — I can handle it.”

“If you’re sure. Call Scott?”

“I will. Thanks, Allison.” She hung up before she could change her mind.

The worst thing was that they didn’t know. They didn’t know how easy it had been to betray everyone. It was such a relief. And she’d — she’d enjoyed it. When she’d seen everyone drinking and hallucinating, it had been such a rush of power. Being the one who knew, not having people sneaking behind her back and yanking her this way and that. For all that Peter had invaded her mind, made her think she was crazy, terrified and scarred her, he had never lied to her. Even his young face had only ever misdirected, never outright lied. And he’d told her, pushed her into power before she knew a thing about herself. You're a strong girl, Lydia.

And it was heady. Terrifying, and heady, and not addicting, not pleasant in the least, but he’d respected her and wanted her, not for her looks, but for her power. You're a strong girl, Lydia. He was the first one to expect greatness from her, prod her towards it. And she’d never give him that power over her again, but she had to close her eyes and breathe — in five, out six — as she remembered the pure exhilaration of being not just cruel, but bad, of seeing people fall to her plan like she’d always known they would.

Lydia had never wanted to conquer the world — too much effort for too little pay off — but the worm moon had shown her that she could, if she wanted to. And. Well, that was a difficult thing to forget, sometimes.

She shook her head, pulled up the pain of waking up with her knuckles cut open, the terror of watching his approach, the humiliation of everyone seeing, and she put it away. All the power in the world was worth nothing if someone else had power over her. You're a strong girl, Lydia.And he was right. She was strong. So she wouldn't let him rule her again.

She called Scott. He went through the paroxysms of righteous fury on her behalf and friendly concern and tedious reassurances that she knew he would. Scott was one of the most genuinely kind people Lydia knew, but she didn’t want kindness at the moment, she wanted — anger and power and the cold certainty of death.

“Could you send Erica?” she asked, because Erica was the next best thing.

 

Erica arrived the next day in a beat up car that Lydia though might belong to Boyd. Her hair was pulled into a greasy ponytail, and her hands shook with exhaustion. She slept in Lydia’s bed for three hours, Michelle throwing confused glances in her direction the entire time. Lydia finished her homework for the next week while she waited. She made mistakes on simple problems, but couldn’t bring herself to care enough to fix them.

When Erica woke up, she yawned and stretched and winked at Michelle. Lydia cleared her throat, raised an eyebrow, and Erica sobered, licking her teeth.

“What do you need?” she asked, as they left the room.

“Let’s walk,” Lydia said. “Tell me if you smell him.”

Erica sniffed the air obediently, and grimaced. “Everything smells weird here. I can’t tell.”

“Well, let me know if you can.”

Erica found nothing, and Lydia lined her room with wolfsbane while her roommate was in class. The purple powder stuck in the lines of her hands, but Lydia didn’t wash it off. It made her feel safer, and she needed all the safety she could get. 

Erica left a silver edged knife on Lydia’s desk on her way out. “Keep safe,” she said, and Lydia touched the handle with a shaking finger.

“I will,” she said. “I will.”

After Erica closed the door, Lydia called the hunters Allison had put her in contact with and arranged a meeting. She needed every damn thing she could get.

She started to see him around campus. He wasn’t there, not really. He probably wasn’t even making her see him. It was her own terror creating him, and his leather coat and that sharp smile. The specters of him never did anything, never approached her, never threatened her. One of them smiled at her, and she had to leave class early, to go back to her room and cry, huge gasping sobs that made her lightheaded. He liked that, she remembered. He liked scaring her into complacence. That was what he always did. Scare her until she couldn’t breathe, until the only way out was his way.

It wouldn’t work this time, she told herself, and remembered the bodies he’d strewn around her imagination when she asked, “What if I don’t?”

But he’d killed people when she’d brought him back to life. Killed and killed and killed, and wasn’t it worth a few lives to stop him? She remembered the way his lips felt on her neck, and even if it weren’t, even if it made her a monster in her own right, well. Lydia Martin was not well known for her sense of empathy.

A day after she made her resolution, he sent something after her. She knew it was his because it was huge, a waist high, chittering beast, eight clacking legs, eyes bright black eyes. She didn’t have enemies in Pasadena aside from him, and her daily meetings with Angie had her suppressing her aura, apparently. So why else would something that looked like it had waltzed right out of the Forbidden Forest be charging towards her on her way to the library?

She pulled out the canister of wolfsbane laced mace one of the hunters had given her — home made, the woman had said, and smiled a bright, vicious smile that was entirely too familiar. Allison had looked like that once. Lydia had shivered, but taken it. The second it got within range, she sprayed it in those eight eyes. It screeched and stopped and snapped its mandibles at her, but it fled.

After that, she killed every spider she saw with extreme prejudice.

Angie threw her backpack down on Lydia’s bed. “All right,” she said. “If he’s sending spiders after you, he’s probably working with a Tsuchigumo. Or just some sort of witch, who knows.”

“Tsuchigumo?” Lydia said, putting her own bag on her desk chair. She’d do her homework later. It wasn’t like any of it was hard. 

“Japanese spider people. This isn’t really how they work, though, so I don’t want to make any baseless accusations. It’s probably just a witch’s familiar or something. But the point still stands: you need to be able to recognize and defend.”

Lydia joined Angie on the bed. Angie pulled her legs up into a butterfly seat, and Lydia envied her loose-limbed grace for a moment as she settled in. Angie opened her backpack and pulled out a slim tablet. “We’re going to start with the basics. You know werewolves, obviously, so we’ll skip those. How well do you know vampires?”

Lydia made fangs with her fingers. “Pointy teeth, speak with a lisp?”

“Ahaha, no,” Angie shoved her gently. She eyed Lydia. "So what have you run into, other than werewolves?"

Lydia tapped her fingers against the cool duvet cover as she thought. "Elves. A Darach. Some sort of shadow thing – don't know what it was, but a flare gun took care of it just fine. Water nymphs. A few other things. It was an eventful couple years."

Angie whistled lowly. "All in one place, and over such a short period of time? Beacon Hills lives up to its name. Well, a basic rundown; werewolves and vampires are the most common sort of us, because they can create more of their own. Witches are next. Men can also be witches. There's no such thing as a warlock or a wizard, those are stupid, made up words that stupid, stuck up men use when they just can't stand being associated with women. Witches are often Watchers, or Pack affiliates of some sort. It's a lot more security and a lot more allies without too much cost to the witch."

"Yeah, yeah," Lydia said. "We went over this the first day. Tell me how to kill everything."

Angie rolled her eyes and shoved Lydia's shoulder. "Rude," she said. "You know how to kill werewolves. Fire, too much damage at once, etcetera etcetera. Vampires are the hardest to put down and keep down. There's pretty much no way to make sure a vampire stays dead, but you can definitely put them down for your lifespan. A stake through the heart won't do much, contrary to public opinion. Dismemberment and fire are your best bet. And they are sensitive to sunlight. Pop culture got that right at least." Angie snorted. "No sparkles, though, and it starts with a plain old sunburn. They just can't spend time in the light or they burn and burn and burn."

"So, nothing I couldn't have figured out myself," Lydia said, crossing her arms and leaning back against her pillows, one eyebrow raised. Angie snorted.

"You are an ungrateful brat," she said, crawling forward so she loomed over Lydia. For a second, Lydia thought Angie was going to kiss her, but then the other girl smirked and head butted her gently. "All right, so everything else, you basically just do what you would do to a human, but more. You and me, though, we're fragile types. We die just as easy as any human, and you better not forget it." Angie flopped down, half her weight on Lydia's legs, so that they twinged painfully. "But you're not actually curious about the specifics of different species, or even the generalities. You have yourself a goal."

Lydia shifted, and made to shove Angie off, but she batted away Lydia's hands.

"I'm not stupid," she said. "You know who killed that boy. And you think whoever it was is after you." She got off Lydia's legs, and her eyes were huge and sincere behind those violently blue glasses. "I can help you, if you let me."

A breath shuddered out of her, almost without Lydia realizing. "It's... hard to explain. His name –"

Michelle burst through the door, shouting at a friend over her shoulder. She quieted when she saw Lydia, and grinned. "Sorry," she said. "I'll be out of your hair in just a sec." True enough, she dropped her bag and grabbed some books, and was out the door in a breeze of fruity perfume before Lydia could respond.

Angie raised her eyebrows.

"She's sweet," Lydia said. "Thinks I'm weird, but then, why wouldn't she?"

"Ah, of course," Angie said, which was no answer at all, but Lydia hadn't really been asking a question, so she couldn't get too defensive. "Well, carry on."

"His name is Peter," Lydia said, and her chest throbbed with panic and claustrophobia and the images of dead friends painted themselves on the backs of her eyelids. "He's a werewolf. He was an alpha. He's – he's a sociopath, killed his own niece for power, for revenge, would have killed his nephew too, if Derek hadn't managed to kill him first. I brought him back." She always said the last part with a mixture of revulsion and pride. He was back, he was unleashed on the world, because of her. But she'd raised the dead, created her very own Lazarus. It was thrilling, having the power of God. "He bit me, before he died. Worked his way into my head. Made me think I was going crazy. Threatened me, scared me, made my life hell. Never hurt me, though, not after the attack." She stopped. She still dreamed of being thrown down on the field, dragged back with his sharp nails to his sharper teeth. That was enough pain for any life. "And I brought him back."

Angie touched her knee hesitantly. "And this was before you even knew what you are?"

"Yeah." Lydia felt hollowed out.

"Shit." Angie scrubbed her hands against her eyes, pushing her glasses up to sit cattywompus on the top of her head. "Shit, you're stronger than I thought. No one's supposed to be able to do that, not without years of training and a hell of a lot of back up."

"Panic does funny things to a person," Lydia said. She didn't know what else she could say.

“Not that funny,” Angie said. “I’m going to go call my grandma. She’ll know what to do.”


	4. Chapter 4

Deaton looked sick in the poor lighting of the clinic and the blue screen light reflecting off his face. “Lydia?” he said, sounding confused, even though he’d agreed to the Skype and picked out the time himself.

“Yeah,” she said, deciding to ignore it. Ignoring other people’s problems had gotten her pretty far in high school, and you just don’t fix what ain’t broke, as her hick uncle Eugene would say, before spitting chaw. She hadn’t seen him in years, since the Martins tended to pretend they were old money and looked down on the members who didn’t play along. “You set your clinic up so no one can get you don’t want to. I lined the room with wolfsbane, but what else can I do?”

He blinked a couple times, and seemed to finally focus on her face. The screen pixelated for a moment, then came back in high quality. “Cold iron,” he said. “As nails in the door frame. That keeps the fey out. If vampires are coming, scatter sand or rice. Most of the old traditions have some truth to them.

“And silver?” Lydia asked. “Does silver work?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Get a necklace. Get a knife. Not pure silver for the knife, that’s expensive and it doesn’t make a good blade anyway. Edge it.”

“Okay,” she said, touching the knife Erica had given her. It was cold and heavy. “Okay. Is there anything I can use to get away fast? Like a tazer, but for werewolves?”

“Wolfsbane bombs,” he said automatically. “You probably can’t manage to just make a circle yet. I’ll teach you when you get home. But if you make a packet that bursts when thrown, you can slow them down for a while, and confuse their sense of smell. I’ll send you some instructions.”

She saw him on the way back from her favorite class, and the joy of equations melted into immediate icy pain tightening her chest. She breathed (in five, out six) and walked like she hadn't seen him. He laughed, or maybe it was the boy with blue eyes coming towards her, and he'd had blue eyes when she kissed him, and oh God, this is what a panic attack felt like, and goddamn it she was breathing, in and out and in and out, and sharp nails curved around the back of her neck and forced her eyes up and it was him, oh god it was him, it wasn't a hallucination. He smiled, but when she tried to yank away her necklace shifted and hit his hand. He hissed through his teeth and let go.

"You always were a clever girl, Lydia," he said, and she wanted to scream, told herself she was going to, bring up all her anger and fear and the pain of the bodies he'd left behind him, but she couldn't, she couldn't, her voice was locked in her chest and she was whining, low in her throat and he was smiling, god that fucking smile, always so goddamn smug and she couldn't get away, she couldn't, and why hadn't anyone noticed, why wasn't anyone looking, this was not a dark back road, this was the middle of campus in the middle of the goddamn day, and his hand had left an imprint of heat on the back of her neck, she was going to burn alive and he'd watch and laugh and--

He offered her his arm, with one of those smiles she dreamed of breaking, and she took it. Lydia felt her body move without any input from her brain and damned if it wasn't easier to let him be in control, but she breathed as they walked, and it had always been easier to let someone else be in control, and she'd never ever allowed that, because she didn't need easy, she needed power, and this was not the way to get it, not at all.

Allison, she thought. What would Allison do? Well, stab him, but if she couldn't, well, Allison was clever and creative, and better at playing other people's games than Lydia was. So she looked up at him through her lashes, and he was so much taller, but that was fine, she'd get him on his knees eventually.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, and her voice didn't shake at all.

He looked down at her, and he really didn't look like a wolf at all. Wolves were sweet, intelligent creatures, and all she could see in his eyes was lust – not for her, well, not in that way – and anger, and an infinite superiority. "We're going to coffee, Lydia. Isn't that a typical first date?"

She snorted. "I turned you down when you were young and pretty. What about psychological torture and rampant murder is going to make me change my mind?"

He laughed, and that was thing, wasn't it, he thought she was funny, he liked her as much as he liked anything, and he would never, ever leave her alone. "I remember an enthusiastic kiss, actually, but you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss me, Lydia. I can be a stunning conversationalist. Let me win you over."

Lydia licked her lips. "Win me over to what?"

"Now don't play dumb," he chided. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Let me make you a queen."

"Fear me, love me, and I will do what you say," she said dryly.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Not quite, but I appreciate the sentiment."

"A quote," she said, and thought about finishing it, but it had worked best as a surprise for Sarah. There was no reason it wouldn't for her, too.

"Well, I'm glad you can find levity in the situation," he said, and frowned. "Not quite the right word. I apologize. Let me treat you. You like frappuccinos, right?"

She did, but Lydia had a feeling that she wouldn't for much longer. "Sure," she said, with a shrug.

He guided her to a seat in the corner of the coffee shop, and when had they gotten there? God, she couldn't be losing time again, it wasn't fair – but fair didn't really have much to do with it, now did it? 

She looked around as he ordered. It was a cute little place, with big comfortable chairs and mugs the size of her head. There were only two other people sitting inside, and they were both absorbed with whatever they were working on. Probably term papers. It was getting to that point in the semester, and her English major acquaintances had begun to seclude themselves and only emerge with large bags under their eyes in order to get more caffeine. She was in front of a large window, and it was beautiful out, sunny and warm, and she wished, quite abruptly, for the snow they'd gotten sometimes in Beacon Hills. She wanted the world cold and miserable.

Peter slid her frappuccino in front of her as he sat down. "Try to look a little happier, Lydia. You're on a date, after all. Wouldn't want to hurt my feelings."

Her drink was still too hot, but she sipped it anyway, savored the pain as it burned the roof of her mouth, the tip of her tongue. "Of course not," she said. "This would be a pity date, after all, for an old man too pathetic to find a wife. One of those college professors that hands out As for a quick roll in the sheets?"

His leg shot forward under the table, landed squarely between her own. Lydia tried to figure out what the exact threat was – it was certainly implicit – but couldn't. "Lydia," he said, and his voice was fond. Fond. After all he'd done, he dared to be fond. "Lydia, you're a smart girl, a strong girl. Don't throw that away on petty grudges."

When she laughed, the sound seemed to have been scraped from her. It was hollow and ugly and angry, and she hadn't known she could make sounds like that. It wasn't exactly a pleasant discovery.

"I know," he said, and smiled, "that we parted on... not the best of terms."

The laugh tore out of her again. "You could say that," she said, on the edge of tears. Her voice was thick and ugly, and how could he do this to her, no matter how much she prepared, he could rip through her defenses in no time flat. When she blinked, she tried to pull forth faces in the darkness. Something that would make her strong. Scott, Stiles. Allison. Lydia breathed. Allison. Allison could be here in six hours. Allison could save her, if she needed saving. 

"Well," Peter said, and he looked off balance for a second, just a second, but it was still off balance, it was still her victory. "I wanted to make reparations. For any trauma I might have caused you."

"A minimum of post traumatic stress, remember. And a few years of nightmares. What are you offering?"

"The world." His eyes were as sincere as they could ever manage to be. "You are great. You could be greater. Come with me."

"And how will you give me the world?"

Peter smiled. "You are familiar, of course, with the myth of Proserpina?"

"And what bearing does Greek mythology have on this?" she asked, but the sick lurching in her stomach didn't need an answer.

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "I'm not about to offer you a pomegranate. But it gets lonely, even in power."

Lydia forced a smile. "And it would be a slap in the face to Derek, if I joined you."

"Well, of course. You know how the game works, Lydia. Never have only one purpose."

She stood, pulling her bag up with her. "Gotta say no. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not."

He smiled that gentle smile she hated so much, but the coffee shop didn't fill with blood and bodies. "A pity. Perhaps you will change your mind. You will be able to find me?"

"Won't need to," she said, but as she turned to walk away he grabbed her wrist, and god, his hand was huge and it pinched, he was hurting her, no no no, and he smiled and lowered his head and pulled her index finger into his mouth, and his teeth sunk in. She didn't scream, just tensed as he sucked the blood, and when he released her, Lydia turned and walked away as fast as she could. She didn't check the damage until she got back to her room.

A small puncture wound, but the blood had welled up and slid into the cracks of her palm from clenching her fists. Lydia pulled out her first aid kit and cleaned it, slowly and carefully, and her hands didn't shake until she was done.

The phone was out before she realized it, Allison's number already pulled up and ready for calling. Lydia stared at her hands where they lay flat on the desk, then put the phone away. Pretend you're okay until you are had been her maxim throughout high school, and she couldn't be calling Allison every time she was scared. Might as well have stayed in Beacon Hills, if she couldn't deal with her own problems.

The knife fit easily into her purse, and even more easily into her back pack, so she made sure she could get at it easily, and practiced drawing it from both until Michelle got back. Then she smiled. "A prop for Angie's play," she said when Michelle looked at it with her eyebrows in her hairline. "Isn't it pretty?"

"Yeah, I guess." Michelle sat on her own bed. "What play is it again?"

Lydia laughed. "God, I don't know. I just saw this and thought it looked cool."

"Fair enough, I guess." Michelle hesitated. "Are you okay? You look really pale."

"Oh, I'm fine. Long day, I guess." Her arms felt heavy all of a sudden. "I'm kind of tired, actually. Are you going to be working in here?"

"I was planning to, yeah, but I can head to the library if you need to sleep."

Lydia wanted to be done with the conversation, and Michelle looked like she did too. "No, I'll just go to Angie's. Study away," she said, and put the knife in her purse.

Angie lived just down the hall, and when Lydia knocked she opened the door looking like she had been hibernating. The room was dark, her glasses were missing, and she squinted through the bruises around her eyes. "Everything okay?" she asked with a jaw cracking yawn.

"People keep asking me that," Lydia said. "Can I crash on your floor for an hour or so? I, uh. I had a run in with Peter today."

Angie stood aside and gestured her in. "I ask again: everything okay?" she said as Lydia entered the room. Angie padded behind her, concern twisting her features.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so. He made an offer, I refused. He bit me, but not hard. I think he wanted to make a point. He could hurt me if he wanted sort of thing."

Angie threw a pillow onto the floor, and Lydia sat on the thick carpet. "That's pretty concerning. Pretty definitely not what I would call okay. Can I see it?"

Lydia held out her hand, and Angie peered at it. "Well. If it keeps bleeding let me know. I'm not exactly an expert on stuff like this."

Lydia curled her fingers back into a fist. "I can deal with it."

"Yeah, but you don't have to. I think you forget that a lot. You have friends who are willing and able to help."

Lydia sat very still. Her legs were curled tightly under her, and her hand hurt and her head ached, and Angie looked just so damn sincere, standing there in an oversized tee-shirt and shorts. Angie didn't understand, of course. But no one understood. Even Allison didn't understand. It wasn't a matter of their ability to help, or their willingness. It wasn't, really. It might have been, at first. Paranoia about being lied to and left out. Abandonment issues. All those lovely little trust issues left over from sophomore year. But it wasn't about that. Not anymore. Not when he looked at her with those bright blue eyes.

It wasn't even a matter of love or hate, and really, she would never bother to try and figure out her feelings about Peter. It would take too long, and it didn't matter in the end. She wanted him dead, with his blood on her hands. Peter had crawled into her head and made himself at home, and there was no forgiving that. It was, and she tried not to smile at the stupidity of it, personal. 

Eventually, she looked up at Angie. "I know. The best thing you can do to help me is to make sure I'm prepared when I go up against him." The words started spilling out without seeming to pass through her brain first. "I'm going to go after him. He'll think I'm coming to join him, take him up on his offer, but I'm going to kill him. And I need back up and knowledge and I need to kill him myself. I need help, but not the way you think. Arm me. But let me fight him myself."

Angie looked at her for a long moment, then sank down to sit in front of her. "Okay," she said. "Don't make me regret this, but okay."

Lydia got back to her room late that night. Michelle jumped almost guiltily when Lydia came in, but settled quickly. She ignored the other girl and got ready for bed mechanically. 

She put the knife under her pillow before she went to sleep, ignoring the wide eyes of her roommate. It didn’t help. The second she slipped into sleep, he was there, leering at her.

“You have no power over me,” she said, but this was no story and he was no goblin king. 

“Of course I do,” he said, and slid his arm over her shoulders, pulling her tight to his chest. “You let me.”

Lydia woke up crying, Michelle’s hand on her shoulder, Michelle’s eyes huge and worried. She scrubbed the tears from her face. “I’m fine,” she said.

Michelle pulled back, shifted from foot to foot uneasily. She was wearing boy’s boxers and a huge shirt, and she looked like a child in the dim light from the window. “Are you sure?” she asked, hands twisting the hem of that huge shirt. “Because you didn’t sound fine, and, I mean, I don’t know what happened, but you were crying really hard and, uh, my mom’s a psychiatrist, do you want to talk to her?”

Lydia sat up, pulled her knees to her chest. “No, I — I’m sorry about waking you up. I’m dealing with it.”

“Oh, you didn’t wake me!” Michelle said, big eyes getting bigger. “Don’t worry about that. I just had to pee, and I heard you, and I mean, we don’t talk much, but no one should have to go through hard things by themselves.”

Lydia forced a smile. “I’ve got friends helping me out. It won’t be a problem, soon, I don’t think.” He’s not going to hurt me again, she didn’t say. I’m going to hurt him.


	5. Chapter 5

After a week of waking up with Michelle’s hand on her shoulder, and seeing Peter everywhere she looked, and seeing blood in the shower and blood on the walls, just blood-blood-blood, she gave up. 

Angie had made speed dial, so it only took a moment to make her surrender complete. “Is there anyone who can stop hallucinations? Counteract bites? You know, just help?” she swallowed. “I can’t do this alone.”

“Thank God,” Angie said. “Yeah, I got you. Well. Probably.”

“Probably? I don’t like probably.” Lydia started to pace. 

Angie’s voice crackled through the phone with a burst of static. Probably passing near a phone line. “It’s not like I know everything. But my grandma knows a lot of people okay, it’s a process.”

“That’s so inefficient,” Lydia groused. “It would be so much simpler to have well known information brokers. Someone who knows everything, or at least knows who will know. Not this unending process of I know a guy who knows a guy. Just give me the guy.”

Angie laughed. “I don’t think anyone’s organized enough to keep track of the crap that happens across this city. This many people, you got to go by word of mouth, really.”

“Hmph.” Lydia paced and tapped a finger against her lips. Sloppy. It was all so sloppy. Things like information couldn’t just be left. That wasn’t how it worked. And the fact that not a one of the supernatural population could pull their head out of their self-serving ass was not a good sign for her continued existence. “Well, fine. Get me the guy that knows the guy.”

When Angie delivered, Lydia almost wished she hadn’t. The guy who knew the guy was a minotaur who had interpreted the labyrinth thing pretty loosely. He lived in a warehouse in one of the sketchiest areas Lydia had ever seen, where the streets were thin and cramped together like a spider web. 

She knocked on the sheet metal door, shivering despite the lingering warmth of the day. It was dark, and she was alone, and the puncture wound on her finger had reopened and filled a glove with blood. It dripped slowly onto the street and she glanced down. The band-aid was saturated and obviously not even keeping the blood out of sight, so she grimaced and pulled it off. 

The door slid open, and a bull’s head peered out at her. The man grunted and gestured in. She walked slowly. She’d never seen anyone so hairy in her life, and she’d spent a good three years of her life primarily with werewolves.

“This way,” he said, leading her back into a maze of crates. He obviously took his mythology very seriously, for someone living in a warehouse.

 

Her hand stung, but the bleeding had stopped, so she slid the packet of wolfsbane into her pocket. Who knew there were so many varieties? She looked up at the minotaur and licked her teeth. “Can I get your contact information? You seem like a knowledgeable sort of guy.”

His big brown cow eyes were probably physically incapable of looking calculating, but the tilt to the head certainly was. He scratched his bare chest. “Sure,” he said, and even though she watched his mouth as he talked, she couldn’t figure out how it worked. “Let me get my card.” There was no sarcasm in his voice, and he didn’t raise an eyebrow, but the way he tossed his horns spoke volumes.

He glanced around and ripped a corner off a newspaper, found a pen, and scrawled a phone number and email address on it. “I have a specialized skill set. Don’t just call me for anything.”

Lydia smirked and took the scrap of newspaper, fitting it in next to the wolfsbane. “I’ll call you when I need you,” she said. “Don’t worry about that.”

She walked out of the warehouse feeling smug and triumphant. It took her two weeks to get a dozen more of those scraps of paper, experts on various matters, dealers of various sorts. She wrote down all the information neatly, in a neat black book, and she started to plan.

Time passed in jumps and starts. Every class took forever — she already knew all of this, she could probably teach the course better than the teacher was — but every free moment she had was spent planning, calling people, meeting people, thrilling over the fact that she didn’t see him from the corner of her eye every time she turned. Angie began to sit on Lydia’s bed as she did her homework, and watch as Lydia paced back and forth, calling people, making deals. 

Beacon Hills and popularity had just been prep for this. She knew how to make people want to please her. She knew how to get fighting friends and worst enemies to work together, or at least next to each other. And she knew how to make everything revolve around her.

Angie laughed, and called her the Spider when Lydia started getting regular calls about supernatural gang activity and gossip. Lydia threw a book at her. “Stop reading so much Game of Thrones,” she snapped, “and besides, I would be Olenna, God, don’t you pay attention at all?”

***

And then it was December, and the semester was over, and Allison was picking her up, and time froze.

Allison’s hands were tight on the wheel, her knuckles white. Lydia shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable. But Allison’s knuckles were bruised and split and clenched so tight they were like to split again.

Lydia breathed deep and sucked it up. She was the great Lydia Martin, and had never allowed anything as simple as awkwardness defeat her. “What’s wrong?”

Allison kept her eyes on the road, which was wrong, it was wrong, Allison always glanced over, met her gaze, smiled and laughed. Now, a muscle in her jaw jumped, and her eyes were cold, so cold, and what had Lydia done to deserve this of all things, when she was already dealing with everything else, there was wolfsbane packed into her finger, why did this need to be hard too?

“Allison,” she said. “I’ll shut up if you tell me to, but I’ve had a pretty rough semester, and I really can’t deal with the silent treatment right now. What’s wrong? Have I done something?”

That was when Allison glanced over, and it hurt, it did, it was like a slap in the face, to be looked at like that, like she was something small and pathetic and not worth Allison’s time. “It’s what you didn’t do that’s bothering me,” Allison said, her voice clipped.

“Kind of had a lot of shit going on, if you haven’t noticed,” Lydia said, trying to force some levity into her voice. It fell flat. It had been doing that a lot lately.

“Yeah, shit that I could have helped with if you had just called. I shouldn’t have had to find out about everything from Stiles, who only found out from Angie, who only told him when she got a call from Deaton. I thought we were friends, Lydia. I thought you trusted me.”

Over the roaring in her ears and the sudden pain in her chest, Lydia could hear herself saying all those excuses and justifications she’d rehearsed so many times. “I just wanted to keep you safe. I wanted to know I could deal with things by myself.”

“Well, apparently you can’t, so why didn’t you just let me know? I could have come up. I could’ve helped.” Her voice was raw, and she still wouldn’t look at Lydia.

“No,” Lydia said. “You couldn’t have.”

“What?”

“You — I. I don’t want to have this conversation when you can pull over and kick me out a hundred miles from home.”

“Well, tough. You were the one who wanted to know what was wrong. Talk, Lydia. Why couldn’t I have helped you? I did a pretty good job helping to take him down the first time.”

And she didn’t want to talk, she didn’t, she didn’t mean to, but the words came out anyway. “You didn’t do a good job keeping him down. You didn’t do a good job being a friend when he was crawling through my brain, when I thought I was going crazy, because I’d rejected Stiles no one thought I was worthy of being helped. I don’t owe you shit, Allison. I don’t owe any boy a date because he asks. Isaac was going to kill me for saying no to him when I was in a relationship, and not once, not once did a one of you think to tell me what was going on. It’s almost like that gives a person trust issues.” Her voice cracked, and she turned to the window, suddenly very cold despite the warm air hitting her face.

It was very quiet for a while, only the rumble of the engine and the soft sound of tires on pavement to break the air.

Eventually Allison swallowed. “You knew about that?”

Lydia rested her forehead against the window. The glass was cool. “Scott told me,” she said. “You know how he is with guilt and secrets.”

Allison forced a laugh. “Yeah, I do.” She licked her lips. “Um. I’m sorry. I really am. You know I wasn’t in a good place that year, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Allison,” Lydia said. “This was before your mother died. There are no excuses. And you know what? Sometimes, I’m glad. Sometimes I remember drugging everyone and bringing Peter back, unleashing him on you, and it feels like justice or vengeance or just plain old good. And I hate him, god do I hate him, but sometimes I hate you more because you were supposed to be my friend, I was supposed to be able to trust you.”

She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. She was a strong girl. Minimum of trauma. She breathed out, fogged the window. “He kissed me, you know? Kissed me and showed me his face, all the burns from my own damn Molotov. Touched me. Made me dream of being dragged back and down, being forced to the ground, and it wasn’t rape but sometimes it really felt like that, and-” she snapped her jaw shut. “He called me strong when he broke me. Beautiful and intelligent and immune, when he told me his plan. Always compliments, as he ripped me apart from the inside.”

“I’m sorry,” Allison said, voice small and quiet. “You’re right. I don’t have any excuses. I let you down. I let you down big time, and if I’d listened, if I’d been there, maybe it wouldn’t have happened, or maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad. And I don’t know how to make up for that.”

“You don’t,” Lydia said. “You can’t. But. You can’t ignore it either. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen, and pretend you don’t understand why I have nightmares and you especially cannot act like you have any right to be insulted when I don't want to tell you things."

"Lydia," Allison said, and it was raw, like it had been dragged from her. Lydia glanced over, and 

Allison's hands had slid down the steering wheel to rest at the bottom, and her face was pale and drawn. "Why now? It's been two years. I thought – I thought I had proved that things were different."

"Now?" Lydia slid down in her seat. "God, I don't know. I suppose because when he's not around, things are different, but Peter -- he pulls me back. He always pulls me back, to scared and helpless and bleeding on the ground." Her finger throbbed. "He wants me to leave school and be with him. Be his queen, his pawn, something where he can use me and call me his. He wants to control me, wants me to want him to."

Allison was quiet for a moment. "You don't, right?"

"Of course not!" Lydia snapped. "Of course not. I don't need some knock off power that's not really mine. I don't need to feel wanted enough to let him use me."

Allison let out a shuddering breath. "I'm – that's good. You're so much better than what he did to you."

"Yeah." She let silence settle over the car, ignored Allison for the rest of the ride, except when she reached for the radio. Then Lydia smacked her hand away. Allison had the worst taste in music.

When Stiles opened the door, his face split in a smile so wide it must have hurt, and he started jumping up and down and waving. Lydia felt her expression start to match his, so she just closed the distance between them and hugged him as hard as she could. Stiles picked her up, holding so tightly her back cracked, and swung her. When he put her down, he led her up to his room. It was the same as she remembered – full of the clutter of someone sure it would be useful someday, no use in throwing that out, but neatly kept all the same.

"God, I missed you," he said, and, "do you want to get drunk and talk shit?"

Lydia laughed. "Yes, yes, a million times yes. There's this one asshole in my Chem class that just will not take a hint."

"Oh, let me tell you about won't take a hint. There's this one girl who just wants to get it on with me and will not let it go."

"No, there's not."

"No," he said, laughing. "There's not. I just wanted to sound cool. I did make out with a few people at parties, so I'm not saying I've got game, but I've got game."

"With that smile?" Lydia laughed. "How could you not?"

Stiles smiled at her again, and dropped to sit on the edge of his bed. "We always end up back here, don't we?"

She glanced out the window. The trees were skeletal, but, being California, the grass was still green. "Yeah," she said. "Something about this school, this town. Someday I'm going to leave and never come back."

When she glanced down at him, Stiles' eyes were big and warm, head tilted back and throat exposed. He didn't look vulnerable, though, and god the wolves rubbed off, if that was her first thought on seeing a frankly attractive throat.

"Yeah," he said. "You are. The rest of us? We might get stuck, get pulled into the revolving door of bullshit this place has, but you would never be happy here. Don't count me out, though! I want to be a big city boy."

"Oh, honey," she said, with a rush of fondness so strong her chest hurt. She sat delicately on the bed next to him, and her finger throbbed. "You're meant for places where you can know everyone's face. You'd get claustrophobic in a big city."

He bumped his shoulder against hers. "You might be right, but I'm gonna give it a shot all the same. So, did anything good happen to you this semester, or was it all a -- I'm trying to think of a polite word and failing, so, shitstorm?"

"Mostly shitstorm," she said, letting her head fall onto his shoulder. He was warm and solid, and she'd woken gasping from nightmares for the past three days. "But I really like college. I still have to take intro classes, which is annoying, but it's still better than high school. Moves faster, and when I ask the professors for more challenging stuff they actually deliver. So that's nice. Also the whole not high school thing is an instant winner."

"Yeah, it's a nice touch, gotta say." He poked her in the side. "I have finally learned what it is to be interested in what is happening in class, which is excellent." He pouted. "I miss everyone, though."

"It's good to be back," she said. "For a little while anyway."

"Seen anyone else yet?"

"Only Allison," she said, and didn't say, I'm probably in love with her, didn't say, I kind of hate her, didn't say, I miss her more when she's sitting next to me than I do when she's a hundred miles away.

"Well, Erica, Boyd and Isaac have given each other promise rings. It's adorable. And Scott has managed to get even more intense abs, and is reaching Derek levels of taking his shirt off whenever possible."

"Promise rings?" she said. "That's simultaneously the stupidest and cutest thing I have ever heard."

"I know, right? How are they so terrifying and cuddly? How does it work, given that Erica and Isaac are both kind of Type A? Does Boyd ever regret his life choices?"

Lydia muffled her laugh in his shoulder. "I missed you," she whispered into the flannel. "I missed you so much."

He quieted and stroked her hair. "I missed you too. And you know that I will always be willing to help you."

"I am having trouble with English. You could help me with some literature analysis. I am a mathematical mind, Stiles, metaphors and symbolism are too roundabout for me."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it, but really? You're great at riddles. Books are just big riddles."

"I did know." She pulled away and fixed him with a smile. "Thank you."

When she went to visit Erica, Isaac opened the door, which was really what she should have expected anyway. He looked startled for about half a second, then stepped aside. “Come on in,” he said. “Erica’s in the shower.”

She smiled at him, and went straight to the kitchen. Boyd’s apartment had become Erica’s apartment had become Boyd-and-Erica-and-Isaac’s apartment at some point in the past semester, and it was strange, seeing touches of all three of them thrown around the rooms. Erica’s leather boots flopping over onto Isaac’s motorcycle helmet, Boyd’s knitting nestled in a pile of leather jackets.

Isaac started making tea as she settled into a chair. His hair was spiky, but not in a purposeful way. More like he had been running his hands through it.

“What's wrong?” she asked, tracing the grain of the table with a fingertip, not quite looking at him.

He glanced back at her, and gave her an abortive, half shrug. “Money,” he said. “We're all pretty unemployable, and Derek can barely take care of himself.”

“I thought you and Boyd had jobs?”

He sat down across from her, and the bags under his eyes were really obvious, how had she not noticed them before? “Yeah,” he said. “Minimum wage. And Erica's doing odd-jobs. But costs are going up and wages are not, so.” He shrugged again. “It'll work out, eventually. Boyd's good with this sort of stuff. Doesn't panic, like I do.”

Lydia bit her lip. “Actually, I think I might be able to help out.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I don't want charity, Lydia. We'll get through this. It's just going to be tight.”

“I don't mean charity,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “I mean that I'm working on creating a network of, you know, supernatural contacts. I could set you guys up with some jobs from time to time, and when I start making money from it, I could hire you.”

Isaac stared at her, eyes huge. “Shit, really? You haven't been screwing around, Martin.”

She grinned. “I have not, Lahey. You interested?”

Erica padded in, hair dripping onto a worn thin t-shirt. “Interested in what?”

“Working for me,” Lydia said, meeting her eyes. “I'm starting a business, and I can set you up.”

Erica dropped into the seat next to Isaac, and their hands tangled without either of them seeming to notice. “What's the catch?”

“You're going to need to stop wearing panda eyes. Eyes or lips, honey.”

Erica snorted and flicked her wet hair over her shoulder with an easy motion. “Why bother choosing? What type of work?”

Lydia leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table. “Depends on what people need when, but there'll be a range. Grunt work – heavy lifting and so on, to information collecting, to whatever people need doing. All for other supernatural types, all run past me. Nothing sketchy, and nothing from sketchy people.” She let herself grin. “I'm making a name for myself.”

Isaac looked at Erica, and after a moment she nodded. “I'm in. We don't need to move, or anything, right?”

Lydia considered. “You shouldn't need to, no. There would be more work in a city – supernatural and mundane, but enough happens here that I should be able to set you up with stuff every once in a while.”

Erica nodded. “Cool. Isaac, text Boyd, he should know about this.”

The visit to Derek started with him slamming the door in her face. She knocked until he opened it again. She breezed in past him and he grumbled and gave half-protests and objections.

“Grow up, you grump. It's not my fault you can't ask a guy out, and the fact that you're still hung up on it is very sad indeed.” She glanced around his apartment, then sat on the edge of his couch. “I need your help.”

He crossed his arms. “Why would I want to help you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because I've saved your life more times than you can count, and one piece of bad advice is not enough to ruin a friendship. Besides, you benefit from this as much as I do. We're killing Peter.”

He started to pace, his constant frown getting deeper. “How?”

So she told him, and the frown got deeper and deeper, until it seemed like it would never come out.

“That,” he said, “just might work. All right, you have me. The second week of second semester?”

“Yes,” she said. “I look forward to seeing you.”

He opened the door for her on the way out, and his eyes were dark and considering whenever she met them, so she smiled brightly and left quickly, and headed straight to Scott's.

Scott was exactly the same as she remembered, sweet and determined and optimistic in a way that always grated just a little bit at her sensibilities. He agreed immediately to her plan, and it was only partially because of his remaining guilt, she thought.

But being alone with Scott made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn't quite put into words. She liked him well enough, of course. He was cute, and sweet, and she trusted him with her life. It was probably because they were so different, that he made her uncomfortable. She felt like something old and ruined around him, so she rushed the meeting, let him reassure her and make promises with his serious dark eyes.

And when she left, she drove to Allison's apartment without realizing what she was doing.

Allison opened the door after a moment, quickly enough that she must have been in the room closest to the door. Mr. Argent waved at Lydia from further in the apartment.

“Hey,” Allison said, startled. “Come in. My room's a bit messy right now, hope you don't mind.”

“No, no, of course not,” Lydia said, following the taller girl. 

Allison closed the door behind them, and turned to Lydia, a crease between her dark eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“I didn't come here for an apology,” Lydia said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “I just wanted to tell you that I'm going after him, next semester, and I want your help. All of you.”

Allison smiled hesitantly. “I can do that.”

Again, her time filled with phone calls and plans. This time, however, it was broken up by being dragged from her room and into planning meetings with the pack, and visits to the vet clinic to yell at Deaton. She brushed up on her Latin and her French, and listened to a lot of music she would never admit to liking, and then she was in a car with Allison on her way back to Caltech.


	6. Chapter 6

January was cold. Lydia hated being cold. She hated wearing pants, and she hated what hats did to her hair, and she couldn’t wear any of her favorite shoes. And she hated seeing the fogged ice and thinking of flowers. She hadn’t been ice skating since that day.

Lydia sat at her desk, researching. She’d finished her homework for the week, and it was all put away and ready to be handed in. She would probably ask for an extension on one paper — it didn’t do to make teachers suspicious. She wouldn’t burn out, but it might get tedious.

The door creaked open and Angie threw a hat at her head. It hit with a soft thump, painless but annoying. Lydia turned to glare at the other girl, and her back cracked.

“Ha!” Angie said, and it was distinctly a said, rather than a laugh. “You have been doing nothing for the past three hours, and it is time for you to come out and enjoy the half an inch of snow we got.”

“Half an inch? Wow, what a Christmas miracle. You know what, I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’ll let you enjoy the snow, and I can enjoy the central heating.”

Angie stuck her tongue out and looked considering for half a second, before pulling the chair away from the desk and pulling Lydia out of it. “Better idea,” she said. “You’re coming with me, and not staring at pages and pages of bad advice on how to kill a werewolf.”

“It’s not bad,” Lydia protested as she let Angie drag her from the room, pausing to pull on her boots. “Just untested. No one knows if a spinal cord injury slows regeneration. It sounds like a good theory to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know what sounds like a good plan to me, is hot chocolate and an hour of human contact.”

“An hour sounds excessive,” Lydia said, as Angie hooked their arms and led her out of the building. 

Angie snorted. “You won't be saying that at the end of the hour, because I am going to take you to the best hot chocolate you have ever had. You'll be begging for more, flirting with the waiters, thanking me, gosh, you're just going to want another hour.”

Lydia shoved Angie with her shoulder. “Uh-huh. That's what they always say.”

There was a flash of black leather from the corner of her eye, and her scars ached and she whipped around so fast she stumbled, and he was there, he was there, and he met her eyes and he smiled, wide and toothy, and Angie's hands were tight around her arm as she started to sink to the ground, yanking her back up.

“Lydia,” she said, and it sounded like it came from a great distance away. “Lydia, we're getting out of here, I see him, don't worry, I'll get you away, Lydia, listen to me.”

But she couldn't drag her eyes away from him, and she was gasping for air, struggling to breathe, a pain in her chest like she'd been punched, bile crawling its way up the back of her throat. There would be bruises where Angie's fingers were digging in, she could tell, but the pain from that was nothing compared to the throbbing in her hip, and he was smiling, he was smiling, goddamnit, and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't – 

Angie yanked her around, so she couldn't see him, spinning them so her body was between them. “I have you,” she said. “I'm here, I have you, he can't hurt you, not here, not now.”

“You don't know that,” Lydia gasped, somehow more terrified that she couldn't see him.

“I do, and go, we're getting out of here, we're getting away, you're not alone, you're not helpless, I have you.”

And her hands were firm and hot against Lydia's skin, and Lydia turned and ran. People stared and she had to push her way through the crowd of a class change, but Angie's hand was firm against her back, and they were going, going, gone, and she couldn't see him, not anywhere, and Angie held her tight as she sobbed into Angie's neck.

It only took her a minute to collect herself. Her hands were still shaking, and she still felt like she had been punched in the gut, but she managed to stop the dry, shuddering sobs, and wipe away her tears. “It has to be now,” she said, trying to pull out her phone. Her hands shook too badly, and Angie pried it from her fingers. “It has to be now, I can't do this anymore, I can't deal with him anymore, call them, I need to kill him, I need--”

Angie dialed. “I've got it, I'm calling them, don't worry. I've got it.”

Lydia sank down to a crouch, head buried in her knees, hands linked over the back of her head. In, out, in and out. I am here and here to stay.

Angie's voice murmured at the edge of her hearing for a while, then a sharp, “What?” grabbed her attention. “Shit. Shit. Lydia, he took Allison.”

She lurched. No. No, he couldn't have, why would he do that, stupid question. She was ignoring him, of course he took her best friend. Of course.

 

The pack trickled in over the next four hours, all of them wild eyed and seething. Michelle took one look at her room filled with angry, muscular people, mumbled something and left. Lydia half-heartedly worried about the aftermath of that, but then Erica snarled something about Lydia's phone buzzing.

The text was from Allison, and all it had was an address and a time.

And, well, Lydia knew what to do with that, so she made a few calls, and then they settled in to wait, piled up against each other, Boyd's hand steady on her knee, Stiles' fingers knotted with hers, Angie's back pressed against hers.

 

When they checked out the building Peter is holed up in, the werewolves jerked to a stop a hundred feet away. Lydia looked at her feet and Angie’s, the only ones that had crossed a previously invisible line. She knelt to break the wolfsbane, but her head reeled, and Angie grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back up.

“I — I’ve heard of this type,” she said. “I thought it was a myth. Only the caster can break the circle.”

“How did he put it down in the first place?” Lydia asked, a hand to her suddenly throbbing head. “He shouldn’t be able to touch it.”

Angie shrugged. “An accomplice. A captive. I’ll find them, try to get them to break the circle.” She glanced at her watch. “I — I think you’ll have to go on alone.”

Scott snarled and pushed at the invisible wall. It shimmered around his hands, but didn’t break, and he bared lengthening teeth. “It’s too dangerous,” he said.

Lydia licked her lips. “And it has to be done. Angie, be quick, please. Scott, when he sends her out, tell her the plan. Get her to a hospital if she needs it, but make sure I get my ride out of here. And, uh, if I fail — well, you’ll know soon enough, anyway.”

Angie gave her a long look and set off. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders and started to walk. The wolves snapped and paced at the line of wolfsbane, but she didn't look back at them.

The park was dark, with no lights and thick trees twining over her head to block out the light from the stars. Her heart hammered at her ribs, and her hands were sweating, but she kept walking.

The building was small and squat, more a storage shed than anything else. When she pushed the door open, the first thing she saw was Allison, hands bound, eyes mutinous, and then, above her, Peter.

He smiled at her, blue eyes bright in the gloom of the shed. “Hello, Lydia.”

“Let her go.” Her hands shook, so she shoved them into her pockets.

His smile stretched wider. “Of course.” He reached down and Allison's hands fell free. She immediately whirled to attack him, but he slid out of her reach, claws appearing. “Ah, ah, sweetheart. Think about how well this worked for your aunt.”

She paused, and her eyes flicked back to Lydia. Lydia nodded, and Allison snarled wordlessly, and stalked past Lydia to the door. Her hand slid against the length of Lydia's arm, gentle and reassuring, and then she was out. Lydia breathed. Everyone knew their part, and if Angie managed to get the barrier broken, everything would be fine.

“Come in,” he said, and his smile never wavered. She clenched her hands and did so. He closed the door behind her, leaning over to smell her hair as he moved past her to do so. Lydia pulled away, a sound of disgust trapped in her throat. He began to circle her, looking her up and down as he did so, considering.

The room was over air conditioned, and that, she told herself, was the reason for the goosebumps. It was empty and stark, and easy to clean. Linoleum and gray paint that had once been white. She focused on those details as he stalked around her, those details and her breathing.

Step one: show that you’re hiding your fear.

The first step was the easiest. She was hiding her fear from those glowing eyes. He didn’t get anything from her, not this time. But she let her carefully controlled breathing shudder out of her chest, once every few circles.

He kept smiling. His teeth hadn’t come out yet, just the eyes, so when he came up close behind her, his breath ghosting across the back of her neck, his hands smoothing up the lengths of her arms until they tightened around her biceps and pulled her back against his chest, she allowed the shiver of disgust that had been building escape.

He smiled against her ear, so close she could feel the twitch of his lips against her ear. She did not feign the convulsive jerk of what felt like every muscle in her body straining to get away from him at once. He always liked her fear best, anyway.

“You’ve been very naughty,” he said, his breath hot on the side of her face. “And quite sad, really, scrambling this way and that for a way to kill me. And now we’re in a room together. Did you plan for this, Lydia?” The derision was so heavy in his voice she was surprised he didn’t choke on it.

Step two: Break his control.

“No,” she whimpered. “No, please, I haven’t been doing anything, I just wanted to – I just, please, I just didn’t want to be afraid anymore, please, don’t hurt me!”

He yanked her around, their faces so close their noses almost brushed. His eyes were eager, and bright, and blue. “Oh, you pretty, stupid girl. Why would I ever let you go?”

His teeth lengthened and sharpened as he spoke, as he pulled her closer and closer. She fought the urge to slam her forehead into that gaping hole of a mouth. It would only hurt her, anyway.

“Please,” she said again as she started to slip the knife from her sleeve.

He licked the side of her face, long teeth catching at her jaw and pulling the skin apart in a burst of white-hot pain. She screamed, again wholly unfeigned.

Step three: Stab him.

She drove the knife up and into his belly, relishing the feeling of brief resistance and then only give. He grunted, then started to laugh.

“Did you really think that would work?” he said, and threw her across the room. The wall was harder than her ribs, and the impact would certainly leave a bruise. She struggled to her feet as quickly as she could.

“The second I pull out this little knife of yours I’ll heal. Did you remember that when you making this little plan of yours? I assume it was a plan, and not just a particularly foolish whim. I know you, Lydia. I think you forget that sometimes.” He stalked towards her, face dark with intent.

Step four: The reveal. The best part, really.

She had to laugh, even as the blood covered her neck, even as her ribs protested. “No,” she said. “You don’t. For one, you’re not going to want to pull that out.”

He glanced down at the knife, and the runes that had begun to glow on the handle.

“From Allison and Erica,” she said. “With a little help from Stiles. You wouldn’t be surprised at  
the amount the Argents know about hurting werewolves, but the enthusiasm might be a shock. You never should have come back, Peter. You never should have dismissed us as just human.”

He reached her, and stroked the side of her face, fingers tracing the gashes his own teeth had left. “You’ve never been just, my dear Lydia.” He laughed, then, and took her hand in his own and wrapped it around the handle of the knife. “I’ll kill every one of your friends, you know. And you’ll watch.”

His grip was tight, and her hand protested at the grinding of bone against bone against metal.

“You’ll save me for last, then?” she asked, voice not quite shaking. This wasn’t going wrong yet. She could still salvage it.

“Oh, I won’t kill you. Not today, or tomorrow, or the day after that. You haven’t bored me yet. So many people are so boring, my sweet, it would be a shame to waste those that aren’t. No, I’ll keep you at my side, and I’ll make you watch every one of your friends die, and your family, too, and even that boy you smiled at in the hall today. Everyone you have ever touched will die, and you won’t. And maybe I’ll rape you. Maybe I’ll torture you. Maybe I’ll just lock you in a little room just like this one and leave you. But one day, I will kill you. Slowly. Brutally. You could have been a queen, my sweet.”

“I think,” she said, and smiled, and relished the look of confusion in his eyes, “that I would rather be a person.”

His hand loosened on hers, and she twisted the knife, felt it shatter and pulled what remained attached to the handle out. He backed away from her, one hand falling to cup the hole in his gut. It smoked and seeped black sludge over his fingers. He looked up at her, respect finally glittering in his eyes.

“You coated it with wolfsbane,” he said.

“Not just wolfsbane. It has a silver core, and a few enchantments, and, oh, just a little, tiny, really,” and she couldn’t keep the smile from her lips, “bit of lighter fluid.”

He stumbled and sat suddenly. “No,” he said. It wasn’t quite pleading, but she’d take it anyway.

She pulled the box of matches from her pocket. “Yes,” she said, and Lydia struck a match and tossed it on his stomach. “It was becoming a tradition, and who am I to break such a thing?”

“No,” Peter said again. The sludge caught on fire, racing back into the seeping hole.

“You won’t be coming back this time,” she said and, almost lovingly, kicked him in the face.

Lydia pulled her phone out as Peter burned, and hit speed dial. “It's done.”

Allison’s voice was hard with anger. “He’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Lydia said, and looked over at the burning man. He wasn’t even screaming, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel cheated, just empty and a little sad. “It all went according to plan. I need a first aid kit, though, and an ax I think.”

Allison laughed, and Lydia had never heard her sound so bitter and tired. “I’ll do my best. How hurt are you?”

Lydia tried to catalogue her pain and her victory and all of the emotions she should have been feeling. But he was burning and whimpering, and the smell made her nauseous. She owed it to him, to herself, to watch his death, to reassure herself that it was permanent this time, that he wouldn’t crawl his way into her nightmares and claw his way back to life, but really all she wanted was to go home, to curl up under some blankets, and to cry. Her eyes were hot and dry, but she could feel it, under her frayed self control. She wanted to be done.

But with Peter, she’d never really be done. He was right, in a way, that he knew her. He’d lived in her mind, twisted it around himself, made her sharper and angrier and always and ever afraid, and she would never, ever believe he was gone for good.

But she couldn’t put that all into words, so she looked at him as he writhed, mouth open in a silent scream. “I’ve been better, but I’ll make it,” she said, and hoped it was true.

 

She didn’t cry for three days. Then, on the fourth day, as she put away her clean laundry, she sat on the floor and began to sob. Allison was there within a second, and Lydia felt vague annoyance at being shadowed so completely, but Allison’s arms around her were better than any righteous wrath, so she let it go, and clutched at Allison’s strong arms, and sobbed.

Allison stroked her hair, not saying a thing, and let her. They swayed back and forth, the laundry forgotten in a pile on the floor, until Lydia’s head ached and she couldn’t cry anymore. Michelle had pretty much entirely moved out of the room, returning only occasionally for clean clothes. Angie slept in her bed, most nights, and Allison slept in Lydia's. The mattress was almost too narrow for the both of them, but Lydia tucked herself into the hollows of Allison's body and they curved around each other and it worked.

Allison didn't shush her, thank god, and she pulled away and wiped her nose and eyes, sniffed once, and started to talk. “Even until the end, he thought he could control me. He hated me and wanted me, and I – I. I don't know how to move on from this.”

Allison sat back on her heels and met Lydia's gaze. “You don't need to know. You don't need to move on now. Let yourself process. You won, and no matter how much he hurt you, no matter how bad it got, you need to remember that. You won.”

Lydia nodded, and wiped her nose again. Her face was almost definitely blotchy and red. “I didn't think he would take you. I'm sorry. I thought I had it all planned out. I thought I knew how it would go.”

Allison rolled her eyes and leaned forward to hold Lydia's shoulders gently. Her eyes were soft with affection and worry. “You thought pretty fast on your feet. You faced him alone, and you won, and the rest of us didn't do shit.”

A laugh forced its way out of her throat. “You got me there and back. That's pretty important. Not being alone was, uh, pretty important. Given, you know, the way it went down last time.”

Allison leaned forward, and Lydia's eyes flicked to her lips and back to her eyes. “I will never leave you alone again.”

Lydia didn't lean in and kiss her. She was pretty proud of that. “I believe you. I – I trust you. I do.”

Allison smiled and pulled back again, her hands sliding from Lydia's arms. “Hey, is there anything that'll cheer you up? Get us out of the room?”

It was a Saturday night. “We could go out, I guess. There's probably something going on somewhere on campus.”  
Allison nodded encouragingly. “Yeah, that sounds fun. Let's do that.”


	7. Chapter 7

Allison sat on Lydia’s bed as Lydia got ready, trying on slinky dress after slinky dress. Allison was effortlessly beautiful, but Lydia didn’t have the patience for effortless beauty.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea. . .” Allison started to say.

Lydia stopped between dresses to cross her arms, and if she did it in the way that best showed off her boobs, well, who would be the wiser? “Allison,” she said. “You suggested this. I'm not spending one more day moping in dirty sweatpants. I have to show you off.”

 

Allison started to smile, not big enough to dimple, but enough to make Lydia flush with victory. She could move on. She could make herself happy. She could make other people happy.

“So, which dress?” she asked, gesturing at the three spread across her room.

Allison chewed on her lip, then tapped on short, tight and red.

Lydia nodded and slipped into it, fumbling briefly at the zipper and relishing the feeling of constriction as she breathed in deeply. She flipped her hair out of her face and grinned. “Now, are you going to help me with this tequila, or will I have to drink it all myself?”

Allison slid from the bed, already reaching for her shot glass. “You have to ask? Dearest, college has changed you.”

Lydia poured, and poured, and poured again, and three shots later they set out. Angie waved them away when they knocked at her door. “Homework,” she said. 

The party was packed and the music was loud and Lydia clung to Allison’s hand as they wound their way through. She snagged a beer from the fridge by the door as they passed it. Her feet missed the ground more than they hit it, and it was, quite frankly, hilarious. She always forgot how much of a lightweight she was.

And there was the dance floor, and her hips were already moving, so they might as well be there, so Lydia dragged a laughing Allison over, her pretty black flats sliding in spilled beer.

“Dance with me,” she shouted over the music, knotting their hands together so Allison couldn’t disappear in the press of bodies.

Allison couldn’t stop giggling, and if their bodies were closer than just friends, well, there was no space, so Lydia looped her hand behind Allison’s neck and leaned into the heat and softness of her, and Allison’s hands hovered and landed on Lydia’s hips, pulling her tight to Allison’s body and Lydia laughed into the curve of her neck, and they were stumbling – dancing – back until Allison’s back was pressed against the wall and no one was paying any attention to them, so, really, it was like they were alone, and there was a drop of sweat rolling down the pale column of Allison’s neck – so Lydia licked it off and kissed her way up to Allison’s mouth and Allison sank her hand into Lydia’s hair and pulled her closer and it was beyond messy, too many teeth and neither of them could stop laughing and it was everything Lydia had been pretending she didn’t want.

So she slid her thigh between Allison’s knees, and Allison’s short, sharp gasp was almost as good as the way she pulled Lydia closer, closer. So she sucked a hickey onto Allison's neck, and Allison hummed in pleasure, and, well.

They went back to Lydia's room shortly after that, and when Lydia woke up the next morning, she was alone.

 

Stiles was absolutely the only person she'd told about what happened with Allison, and the only one she'd told about planning to move off-campus, so when he called her to come over to his house over spring break, she was a little bit worried. Well, Stiles and Angie, but Angie barely counted. She hadn't told Angie so much as sobbed it out while Angie ate cereal and made soothing noises.

“So what’s the surprise, then?” Lydia asked, swinging her feet into the cupboards. 

Stiles looked up at her and made a little moue of annoyance. “You’re wheedling, stop.”

“Wheedling?” she cried, throwing a hand up and mocking offense. “I don’t wheedle. I coerce, or convince, or even bully, but I do not wheedle.”

“Yeah, well, prove it.”

Lydia stuck her tongue out. 

“An impressive start!” he said. “It's not here, get off my counter. It's in my room.”

“It's not another TV is it? Because that's weird, and we have boundaries, Stiles, boundaries that preclude the purchase of expensive household items.

He mock scowled at her, and ushered her into his room. A cardboard box sat in the middle of the room, and she started towards it.

“Ah, ah, ah!” he cried, jumping in front of her. “This is a gift, and you don't get to peek!”

Lydia settled back on her heels, crossing her arms and tapping one foot. “I'm waiting.”

He ran his hands through his hair fast, then took up a showman's position to the side of the box. “Since you've had such a rough year, I thought you deserved some unconditional love. And since you're moving, you don't need to worry about dorm regulations, and, well.” He pulled a German shepherd puppy from the cardboard box. It was a beautiful deep black, with bright eyes, and one floppy ear.

“Oh,” she said, and felt her heart melt. “Oh, he’s so sweet. Stiles, how did you…?” He handed the puppy to her and she cuddled him against her chest.

“Well,” he said, and scuffed a hand across the back of his head. “I just remembered how upset you were when Prada died, and, I mean, I know he’s not a small dog and you like small dogs, but he flunked out of police dog training and I figured if you didn’t want him he’s a purebred with papers, it wouldn’t be too hard to get him a good home, and, well, I figured you might be lonely out there in the city by yourself, and we’ll visit and Skype of course, but it’s not the same, and, uh —“

“He’s perfect, Stiles, don’t worry.” She looked into those bright black eyes and the puppy wiggled and licked at her nose. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I don’t know what to name him.”

“Uh, I didn’t mean to, but I kind of did? I started calling him Kovu and now it’s all that he’ll respond to. So, uh, problem solved?”

Lydia looked at him again. “Kovu? Like from the Lion King?”

“Two,” he said. “You watched Disney sequels?”

Lydia looked over at him. “Lion King was Hamlet with lions. How could I resist?”

“Ah, of course, you were never interested in it for such juvenile reasons as loving Disney or happiness.”

“Of course not,” she said, pulling the puppy closer to her chest. He yawned up at her and she cooed involuntarily. “I have always been a sophisticated woman, with sophisticated tastes. I never wore flashing sneakers or jelly bracelets, or tutus whenever I could convince my parents to let me out of the house in them.”

Stiles laughed, and she really did love this boy. Especially since he wasn't in love with her anymore. “Why, Ms. Martin,” he said. “I'm shocked, just shocked to hear of such behavior from the noble and dignified lady of the house.”

She tapped her nose to Kovu's. “I'm moving to Pasadena,” she said, to those bright black eyes.

Stiles went still for a second. “For good?”

She looked up at him. “Until I graduate. Then … well. We'll see what happens after that. But I can't deal with dorm life, and I can't stay in Beacon Hills any longer, and I don't know what else to do.”

He sat on the edge of his bed. “Do you have an apartment lined up? You're bringing your car?”

“I know someone who can give me a deal, and yeah, I was planning on it.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. Well, he tried. Stiles had always had trouble moving his eyebrows completely independently. “You know someone?” he said. “Tell me it's not the minotaur, that guy creeps me out.”

“It's not the minotaur,” she said immediately. “It's the naga.”

“Ugh,” he shuddered. “She always flicks her tongue at me.”

“Well, she's offering me a one bedroom apartment in a good location for cheap, so you can live with that.”

Kovu wiggled in her arms, so she put him down, and they watched him waddle around the room and sniff various items. He lingered at the dirty laundry hamper until Stiles shooed him away.

Lydia drove back to her tiny apartment with Kovu nestled in her lap. When she smuggled him up in her purse he made tiny yipping noises, and she rushed up the last flight of stairs to let him out.

She braced her hip against the kitchen counter as she called Sylla, and he started to gnaw on her toes. Lydia smiled down at him, and rented an apartment in the middle of Pasadena.

 

The apartment was empty and echo-y. Kovu immediately scampered into the kitchen, sliding on the tile and hardwood. Sylla slithered in after him, boredom apparent on her scaly face. “Bedroom's over there, bathroom's there, utilities are due at the end of each month. The apartment above you leaks a little sometimes, so if you ever seen any wet patches on the ceiling let me know and I'll get that fixed up. Your neighbors are pretty old, and they're fae, so try not to be too loud. They get cranky, and fae have a special way of complaining.”

Sylla looked over at her. “Welcome to your new home. Let me know if you need anything.” Then she slithered her way back out, a glamor enveloping her as she passed through the door. Suddenly she was a thirty something woman, slightly heavy set, with the greenish hair of blondes who spend too much time in the pool, and dry, flaky skin. Still, Lydia could hear her tail thump against the door frame on the way out. 

She dropped her bag on the floor and smiled at the empty space. She smiled wider when she heard a hiss and Stiles swearing, somewhere back in the hall. 

“Well,” she said to Kovu, as he pounced on her feet. “Things can only go up from here.”


End file.
